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COSMOS, THE SOUL 
AND GOD 



Cosmos, the Soul 
AND God 

A Monistic Inter'pretation of the Facts and 
Findings of Science 

BY 

CHARLES LONDON ARNOLD, M.A. 



St. Paul 




CHICAGO 
A. C. McCLURG & CO. 

1907 



LIBRARY of CONGRbsl 
Two CoDles Received 

M.AK la 190? 

«o_.Copyrlfrht Entry 
CLASS /\ l^o.,ni 

COPY b: 'I 






Copyright 

A. C. McClurg & Co. 

1907 



Published March 9, 1907 

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 



PREFACE 

PERMISSION having been granted by SiR 
Oliver Lodge to embody in the preface 
of the present book certain passages from 
his recent important work, "Life and Matter,"^ 
the author takes this opportunity to express his 
profound gratitude to his benefactor for the great 
privilege accorded him. This eminent scientist, in 
the book from which the following quotations are 
made, has rendered a most valuable service to the 
cause of truth, not only in exposing the speculative 
fallacies of Professor Ernst Haeckel of Jena, but 
in suggesting certain fundamental philosophical 
principles and their application to the solution of 
many hitherto insoluble problems of the universe 
and of human experience. It will readily be seen 
by the reader how fittingly these quotations are 
made to constitute a preface to this volume. 

" Before everything, a philosopher should aim 
to be all-inclusive ; before everything, a man of 
science should aim at being definite, clear, and 
accurate. An attempt at combination is an am- 
bitious attempt which may legitimately be made. 
Positive contributions, either to fact or to system, 
may be real and should be welcome. 

1 Sir Oliver Lodge, " Life and Matter." G. P. Putnam's Sons. 
V 



PREFACE 

" The problem to be solved — and an Old World 
problem indeed it is — is the range, and especially 
the nature of the connection between mind and 
matter; or, let us say, between the material uni- 
verse on the one hand and the vital, the mental, 
the conscious, and spiritual universe or universes 
on the other. It would be extremely surprising if 
any attempt yet made had already been thoroughly 
successful, though the attack on the idealistic side 
appears to many of us physicists to be by far the 
most hopeful line of advance. An excessively wide 
knowledge of existence would seem to be de- 
manded for the success of any such most ambi- 
tious attempt; but, though none of us may hope 
to achieve it, many may strive to make some contri- 
bution towards this great end ; and tJiose who think 
they have snch a contribution to make, or such a 
revelation entrusted to them, are bound to express 
it to the best of their ability, and leave it to their 
contemporaries and successors to assimilate such 
portions of it as are true, and to develop it 
further. 

" It may be worth while to explain how it is 
that, to a physicist unsmitten with any taint of 
solipsism, a well elaborated scheme which is con- 
sistent with already known facts necessarily seems 
to correspond, or to have close affinity, with the 
truth. It is the result of experience of a mathe- 
matical theorem concerning unique distributions. 
P'or instance, it can be shown that in an electric 
field, however complicated, any distribution of 

vi 



PREFACE 

potential which satisfies boundary conditions and 
one or two other essential criteria, must be the actual 
distribution, for it has been rigorously proved that 
there cannot be two or more distributions which 
satisfy those conditions; hence if one is arrived 
at theoretically, or intuitively, or by any means, it 
must be the correct one ; and no further proof is 
required. 

" So, also, in connection with analogies and 
working models ; although they must necessarily 
be imperfect so long as they are only analogies, 
yet the making or imagining of models (not neces- 
sarily or usually a material model, but a concep- 
tual model) is a recognized way of arriving at 
an understanding of recondite and ultrasensual 
processes, occurring, say, in the ether or elsewhere. 
As an addition to evidence derived from such ex- 
periments as have been found possible, and as a 
supplement to the experience out of which as out 
of a nucleus every conception must grow, the mind 
is set to define and invent a self-coherent scheme 
which shall imitate as far as possible the results 
exhibited by nature. By then using this as a 
working hypothesis and pressing it to extremes, 
it can be gradually amended until it shows no sign 
of discordance or failure anywhere, and even serves 
as a guide to new and previously unsuspected 
phenomena. . . . 

" In the transcendental or ultramundane or super- 
sensual region there is the further difficulty to 
be encountered, that we are not acquainted with 

vii 



PREFACE 

anything like all the ' boundary conditions,' so to 
speak ; we only know our little bit of the boundary, 
and we may err egregiously in inferring or attempt- 
ing to infer the remainder. We may even make a 
mistake as to the form of function adapted to the 
case. Nevertheless there is no better clew, and 
the human mind is impelled to do the best it can 
with the confessedly imperfect data which it finds 
at its disposal. The result, therefore, in this region 
is no system of definite and certain truth, as in 
physics, but is either suspense of judgment alto- 
gether, or a tentative scheme or working hypothesis, 
to be held undogmatically, in an attitude of con- 
stant receptiveness for further light and in full 
readiness for modification in the direction of truth. 
" So far concerning the ascertainment of truth 
alone, in intangible regions of inquiry. The fur- 
ther hypothesis that such truth when found will 
be most satisfactory or, in other words, higher and 
better than any alternative plan — the conviction 
that faith in the exceeding grandeur of reality shall 
not be confounded — requires further justification, 
and its grounds are not so easy to formulate. Per- 
haps the feeling is merely human and instinctive ; 
but it is existent and customary, I believe, among 
physicists, possibly among men of science in gen- 
eral, though I cannot speak for all; and it must 
be based upon a mass of experience in which, after 
long groping and guesswork, the truth has ulti- 
mately been discovered and been recognized as 
' very good.' . . . 

viii 



PREFACE 

" Life may be something not only ultraterrestrial, 
but even immaterial, something outside our present 
categories of matter and energy; as real as they 
are but different, and utilizing them for its own 
purpose. What is certain is that life possesses 
power of vitalizing the complex material aggre- 
gates which exist on this planet, and of utilizing 
their energies for a time to display itself amid 
material surroundings, and it seems to disappear 
or evaporate whence it came. It is perpetually 
arriving and perpetually disappearing. While it 
is here, if it is at a sufficiently high level, the 
animated material body moves about and strives 
after many objects, some worthy, some unworthy; 
it acquires thereby a certain individuality, a cer- 
tain character. It may realize ttse/f, becoming con- 
scious of its own mental and spiritual existence; 
and it then begins to explore the Mind which, 
like its own, must underlie the material fabric 
— half displayed, half concealed by the environ- 
ment, and intelligible only to a kindred spirit. 
Thus the scheme of law and order dimly dawns 
upon the nascent soul, and it begins to form clear 
conceptions of truth, goodness, and beauty; it 
may achieve something of permanent value, as a 
work of art or of literature ; it may enter regions 
of emotion and may evolve ideas of the loftiest 
kind ; it may degrade itself below the beasts, or it 
may soar till it is almost divine. 

" Is it the material molecular aggregate that has 
of its own unaided latent power generated thig 



PREFACE 

individuality, acquired this character, felt these 
emotions, evolved these ideas? There are some 
who try to think that it is. There are others who 
recognize in this extraordinary development a con- 
tact between the material frame of things and a 
universe higher and other than anything known to 
our senses ; a universe not dominated by physics 
and chemistry, but utilizing the interactions of 
matter for its own purposes ; a universe where the 
human spirit is more at home than among these 
temporary collocations of atoms; a universe of 
noble contemplation and of lofty joy, long after 
this planet — nay, the whole system — shall have 
fulfilled its sphere of destiny, and retired cold and 
lifeless upon its endless way." 

These eloquent words from the pen of one of 
the most widely recognized authorities upon the 
questions of Modern Science may be thought by 
some to constitute a grand and magnificent vesti- 
bule to a rather mean and unattractive temple. It 
may even be that many who read these words of 
great worth will proceed no further with me, but 
seek the instruction rather of that master of 
science. Should this be so, only good could 
result. 

However, I think I have rightly placed these 
quotations in the very forefront of my book, for 
they afford me the strongest evidence I have yet 
met with in scientific literature that I have not 
been following an ignis fatims through the past 

X 



PREFACE 

quarter of a century. I feel confident that the 
reader will readily perceive that I have pursued 
the line of thought and investigation indicated in 
these quotations, and set forth a somewhat com- 
prehensive hypothesis firmly based upon principles 
therein suggested. 

It may be regarded as bold and presumptuous 
on my part to seem to claim that I have in a 
measure realized the attempt to solve the " Old 
World problem," as to " the range, and especially the 
nature of the connection between mind and matter ; 
or, let us say, between the material universe on the 
one hand and the vital, the mental, the conscious, 
and spiritual universe on the other." The "exces- 
sively wide knowledge . . . demanded for the success 
of any such most ambitious attempt" is certainly 
at one's command in this marvellous age. The 
facts established by the great scientific investi- 
gators of the past century as set forth in the 
introductory chapter of the present work constitute 
a vast store of knowledge provided with which a 
thinker of to-day may go forth to achievements 
heretofore altogether impossible. 

I think I make it clear that there has been con- 
sistent progress in all departments of science toward 
the discovery of the limitations and boundaries of 
the physical world, establishing the necessity of 
postulating the essential psychical or spiritual 
nature of the universe or cosmos, and distinctly 
proving that the present physical world or process 
is finite, transient, and but a phase of cosmic 

xi 



PREFACE 

activities, without manifesting anything of agency- 
originating within itself — hence in no sense self- 
explanatory or accounting for its own activities. 

Had it been permitted to Spinoza to have at his 
command all the rich treasures of fact which 
modern science has gathered and given to the 
world in such comprehensible and usable form, 
that great philosopher would have formulated a 
universal philosophy which would still command 
the assent of all men. His philosophy was founded 
upon the facts of the universe as they were then 
certified to him, and his method was that of seeking 
to interpret these facts rationally and consistently 
with all human experience. 

Before everything, I have sought to develop an 
all-inclusive philosophy. Starting with the estab- 
lished facts of science, seeking the causes of mani- 
fested phenomena, tracing the causal series to the 
very limits of scientific investigation, inevitably 
finding at the limits of the physical process an 
effect for which no physical cause can be dis- 
covered, and driven to attribute such effect to 
some agency outside the world of sense, I reach 
at length the inevitable conclusion that there is 
a world or universe out of which this physical 
process comes, upon which it rests, by which it is 
energetically sustained ; in a word, that the present 
world is but the phenomenal representation of 
some of the forms of cosmic energy. 

The physical world embraces that region of the 
universe whose phenomena are apprehensible by 

3cii 



PREFACE 

our senses, its boundaries are the limitations of our 
actual and possible sensible knowledge and experi- 
ence. It is a process identical with the process of 
evolution. In the order of development it ever man- 
ifests higher and higher forms of cosmic energy. 

The process of evolution is, therefore, a physical 
process only. All progress is manifested in the 
origin, development, and improvement of material 
conditions, aggregates, compounds, and physical 
organisms and organs. The atoms, molecules, 
mass, and all aggregations large and small are 
within the physical world. All forms of energy 
capable of being scientifically investigated, such 
as gravitation, cohesion, chemical affinity, heat, 
light, and electricity, constitute the activities of 
the physical process. The phenomena of hfe and 
mind, too, so far as capable of being apprehended 
by our bodily senses, belong to the material order. 
In all this region we observe the progress of evo- 
lution. Atoms in accordance with definite laws 
unite into molecules, molecules constitute mass. 
Mass is divided into innumerable material forms. 
These forms are aggregates of molecules having 
many different properties. Out of these the nebu- 
lae, the suns, the planets, all terrestrial bodies, all 
organisms are formed. The process of evolution 
is that of the formation and transformation of all 
these material forms. What is sometimes called 
mental and spiritual evolution is only the mani- 
festation of higher psychical or cosmic forces as 
the process of evolution brings forth the more 
xiii 



PREFACE 

highly developed physical organisms capable of 
responding to, and manifesting, these higher forms 
of spiritual energy. 

The cosmic hypothesis which it is the purpose 
of this book to set forth and establish may be 
briefly stated as follows : The universe or cosmos is 
infinite, eternal, infinitely energetic, and essentially 
psychical or spiritual, and perfect, from everlasting 
to everlasting the objective to God. It is God's 
creature in that it exists because God exists. All 
forms of so-called physical energy are manifestations 
of cosmic and psychical forces or activities. The 
theory herein advanced accounts for all the facts 
of science and all the items of human experience. 
It offers a coherent scheme of scientific knowledge 
into which there are no things which cannot be 
fitted. No possible advance of science can render 
this hypothesis inapt, invalid, or obsolete. It dis- 
proves materialism by offering a more satisfactory 
explanation of its own fundamental principles. It 
substitutes for idealism a consistent, comprehensive, 
and rational theory of the universe as real, eternal, 
infinite, and psychical. 

The doctrine of evolution determines man's place 
in organic nature. The hypothesis here presented 
designates the place of organic nature in the course 
of the development of the earth. The Copernican 
theory determined the place of the earth in the 
physical world or process. The theory here offered 
determines the place of the physical process in the 
infinite and eternal cosmos, 
xiv 



PREFACE 

In the discussion following we recognize the two 
paths which alone can lead to the solution of the 
great cosmic problems, experiment and speculation, 
as of equal value and mutually complementary. It 
must be admitted that pure speculation cannot 
bring us to the knowledge of reality. On the 
other hand, the bare facts of science out of relations 
with all other facts of the universe and of experi- 
ence present us with a world composed of a heap 
of dead atoms. Our endeavor has been and will 
ever be to make due use of the recognized results 
attained by the great progress of anatomy, physiol- 
ogy, histology, ontology, and all other branches 
of science, as the fundamental basis on which to 
build a permanent and enduring superstructure 
of legitimate speculation. 

Without wasting time in discussing a theory of 
knowledge or a system of epistemology, as was 
recommended to me by a critic of my manuscript, 
I am satisfied to accept as reliable and irrefutable 
portions of truth the facts which science warrants 
to us as such. Reasoning from these facts con- 
sistently with experience, my method is to construct 
of them, as imperishable blocks of truth, a theory 
of the universe into which all cosmic facts and 
incidents will fit without manipulation. The test 
of the truth and adequacy of this theory is its 
power to account for all the facts. 

C. L. A. 

Detroit, Mich., Jamiary 1, 1907. 

XV 



CONTENTS 



Chapter Page 

I. Introductory 13 

The Interdependence of Science and [Philosophy — 
Astronomy the Earliest of the Sciences — Results of 
the Union of Physical Science with Astronomy — 
Application of Newton's Theory to the Stars — Com- 
position of the Stars demonstrated by Chemistry — 
The Author's Theory of the Source of the Physical 
Process — Development of the Science of Geology — 
The Indestructibility of Matter — Efforts of Chemists 
to produce Living Protoplasm — Impossibility of ex- 
plaining Chemical Affinity, Electricity, Matter, and 
Force — The Cell the Basis of all Organisms — Mani- 
festations of Mind in Micro-organisms — Psychology 
not a Science. 

II. The Physical Process 61 

Matter and Motion perceivable only by our Organs of 
Sense — All Physical Phenomena due to an Unseen 
Force, which is not Physical — The Causal Relation 
of Thought to Physical Changes in the Brain — The 
Partition between the Known and the Unknown due 
to the Limitation of our Sensible Knowledge — The 
Virtual Identity of Heat, Light, Electricity, and 
Chemical Action — The Dynamical Nature of the 
Atom — The Nature of Ether — A New Conception 
of the Atom derived from Investigation of Radio- 
active Substances — Formation of the Molecule — 
The Transitoriness of the Physical Universe — Three 
Stages in the Development of the Organic World — 
Man as more than a Corporeal Being. 

III. Evolution 87 

Creation- Myths — Harmony of the MosaicjCosmogony 
with the Theory of Evolution — Ancient and Modern 
Cosmologies — Preparations for the Establishment of 
the Evolution Theory — Evolution of Man from the 
Moneron — Cooperation of the Various Organs in 

xvii 



CONTENTS 

Man — Psychical Evolution not Inferable from 
Physical Evolution — Specific Structures in the 
Thought-Centres of the Brain of Man not found in 
the Brains of Anthropoid Apes — Weismann's Theory 
of Heredity — No Discernible Difference between 
Dead and Living Protoplasm — Haeckel's Assump- 
tions with Regard to Psychical Phenomena. 

IV. The Cosmos 123 

The Dependence of Physical Phenomena on Psychical 
Activities — The Spiritual Universe regarded as the 
Objective to God — The Doctrine of Divine Imma- 
nence in the World — Pantheism — Relation of the 
Spiritual Universe to the World of Sense — Not 
Mental Evolution, but Progressive Manifestation of 
Mind Power — Instinct and Reason — The Law of 
the Conservation of Mass, and the Law of the Con- 
servation of Energy — Haeckel's Defence of His 
Monistic Theory — The' Absolute Reality a Necessary 
Postulate — Sir Oliver Lodge's View of Life — The 
Phenomena of Genius due to Physical Conditions. 

V. Histology : The Beginning of Intelli- 
gence 161 

Unicellular Organisms — Dr. Hudson on Cell Life — 
Absurdity of the Recognized Phraseology of Science 
on this Subject — The Fortuitous Concourse Theory 

— Inability of Science to account for Inherited In- 
telligence — Differentiation of the Functions of Cells 

— The Nervous System of the Starfish — Testimony 
of Phylogeny and Ontogeny to the Hypothesis here 
set forth. 

VI. The Human Soul 189 

The Unseen Universe not a Subjective, but an Objective 
Existence — Dependence of the Phenomena of Con- 
sciousness on Changes in the Substance of the Brain 

— Necessity for a New Definition of the Soul — 
Evidence of our Personality — The Psychical Universe 
not a Personality — Development of the Mind as- 
sumed, but not proven, by Evolutionists — Progres- 
sive Manifestation of Consciousness — Orthodox Views 
and Evolution Views of the Origin of the Soul — The 
Soul is individuated by the Brain out of the Unseen 

— Natural Morality dependent on Brain Development. 

xviii 



CONTENTS 

VII. The Individualizing Principle in the 

Physical Process 233 

Conflicting Views of the Atom — Individual Atoms, 
Stars, Planets, and Systems — Universal Tendency 
to Individuation in the Inorganic World and the Or- 
ganic — Tendency of Dualism toward Materialism — 
Causal Relation of the Brain to Genius — Action and 
Reaction between Individualities and their Environ- 
ment — Struggle of the Psychical Forces to manifest 
Themselves in All the Kingdoms of Nature — Special 
Manifestations of this Desire among Animals and 
Men — Perfect Freedom of Expression necessary for 
the Development of Creative Powers. 

VIII. Immortality 253 

Recapitulation — Inability of Science to give Demon- 
stration of a Future Life — Probability that even the 
Highest Animals have no Future Life — The Time 
at which the Soul begins to Exist — Two Essential 
Factors of Life — Professor Le Conte's View of 
Evolution as a Gestative Process for the Birth of 
Spirit — The True Meaning of So-Called Mental 
Growth — The Identity of Knowledge and Life — 
The Senses as Gateways of Knowledge — The Purely 
Spiritual Nature of the Soul's Relations. 

IX. God . 281 

The Psychical Universe the Objective to God, though 
in itself without Consciousness — Why Theologians 
at first antagonized Evolution — Beneficial Effects of 
the Evolution Theory on Theistic BeHef — God not 
the Immediate Source of Physical Phenomena — 
Evidence of Intelligence in Nature, without Con- 
scious Purpose or Volition — The Law of Natural 
Selection versus the Argument from Design — The 
Dramatic Tendency in Nature toward Certain Ulti- 
mate Purposes — Two Conflicting Ideas of God, 
hitherto accepted in Christian Thought — Insuffi- 
ciency of the Teleological Argument for the Being of 
an Adorable God — God revealed in Man. 



XIX 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY 

The Interdependence of Science and Philosophy — 
Astronomy the Earliest of the Sciences — Results of 
the Union of Physical Science with Astronomy — 
Apphcation of Newton's Theory to the Stars — Com- 
position of the Stars demonstrated by Chemistry 
— The Author's Theory of the Source of the Physical 
Process — Development of the Science of Geology — 
The Indestructibility of Matter — Efforts of Chemists 
to produce Living Protoplasm — Impossibility of ex- 
plaining Chemical Affinity, Electricity, Matter, and 
Force — The Cell the Basis of all Organisms — Mani- 
festations of Mind in Micro-organisms — Psychology 
not a Science. 



The great progress in anatomy, physiology, histology, and 
ontogeny has recently added a wealth of interesting discoveries 
to our knowledge of the mechanism of the soul. If speculative 
philosophy assimilated only the most important of these signifi- 
cant results of empirical biology, it would have a very differ- 
ent character from that it now unfortunately presents. — 
Ernst Haeckel. 

Although Science is essentially engaged in explaining, her work 
is necessarily confined to the sphere of natural causation ; beyond 
that sphere (i.e., the sensuous) she can explain nothing. In other 
words, even if she were able to explain the natural causation of 
everything, she would be still unable to assign the raison d'itre 
of anything. — G. J. Romanes. 

If Science could transcend the conditions of space and time, of 
phenomenal relativity, and of all human limitations, only then 
could Science be in a position to touch the supernatural theory of 
religion. But obviously, if Science could do this, she would cease 
to be Science. In soaring above the region of phenomena, and 
entering the tenuous ether of noumena, her wings, which we call 
her methods, would in such an atmosphere be no longer of any 
service for movement. Out of time, out of space, out of phe- 
nomenal relations. Science could no longer exist as such. — 
G. J. Romanes. 

Such, then, I conceive to be one of the most important con- 
sequences of the monistic theory, namely, that, by regarding 
physical causation as everywhere the objective or phenomenal 
aspect of an ejective or ontological reality, it furnishes a logical 
basis for a theory of things which is at the same time natural and 
spiritual. — G. J. Romanes. 



Cosmos, the Soul, and God 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY 

Nothing after all is of such permanent worth as a rational interpre- 
tation of the Universe. — Professor Peabody. 

PHILOSOPHY is an attempt as far as pos- 
sible to know the universe as a whole. In 
modern times the so-called natural sciences 
occupy a vast portion of the ancient domain 
of philosophy. These special sciences deal with 
facts from their several special points of view. 
They severally investigate separate fields of phe- 
nomena. Physics, in its narrower significance, 
treats of matter — its properties ; of mass — mole- 
cule and atom ; of the forms of energy — heat, light, 
electricity, sound ; and of the laws of motion. The 
student of physics invades the domain of other 
sciences. He studies the nature of solutions in 
physical chemistry ; he trespasses within the 
boundaries of astronomy in his researches in astro- 
physics ; he investigates earthquakes, volcanoes, 
etc., in geological physics. 

15 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

All the sciences are attempts to know certain 
portions or phases of nature or the physical world. 
They seek to investigate the facts and phenomena 
of the material process as these are discovered 
through the senses, and to classify and unify the 
discovered facts. The physical sciences claim the 
right to carry their investigations throughout time 
and space so far as their methods of observation 
and experiment will enable them to search. Gross 
matter, the subtile ether, the heavenly bodies 
near and remote, all forces and forms of motion, 
the chemical elements and activities, life in all its 
manifold manifestations, biology and physiology, 
are all within the domain of the natural sciences. 
It would be wearisome to enumerate the ever 
increasing branches of science in our day. Philos- 
ophy attempts to unify all these several classifica- 
tions of phenomena and to fashion them into one 
comprehensive and consistent system of things. 
Philosophy seeks fundamental principles and to 
interpret the facts gleaned in all the diverse fields 
of science, consistently. Philosophy may not dis- 
regard the findings of science and build castles in 
the air. The facts discovered by patient investi- 
gation, and the theories verified and established 
by science, must be accepted as the sure foundation 

i6 



INTRODUCTORY 

for any enduring system of philosophy. Specula- 
tive philosophy must assimilate the most important 
of the significant results of empirical science in all 
its departments, if it would offer any comprehensive 
or intelligible view of the universe. 

The oldest of the physical sciences is astronomy, 
and its early history is more important than that 
of any other ; indeed, it may be said that the state 
of scientific culture among the early peoples was 
little more than the practical observations of 
astronomy. This science had its beginning among 
the Chaldeans and the Chinese. These ancient 
observers of the heavens were able to predict 
eclipses with considerable accuracy, were ac- 
quainted with certain forms of the calendar. 
Among the Chinese are extant authentic observa- 
tions of eclipses, comets, etc., extending back for a 
thousand years before our era. In Egypt, among 
the Greeks, and among the most ancient races, the 
observations of the heavens and the study of the 
stars constituted the scientific culture of the most 
conspicuous intellects. 

In the second century before our era, Ptolemy, 
from superficial observation of the apparent move- 
ments of heavenly bodies, invented the Epicyclic 
System of the Universe, making the sun and 

17 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

planets revolve in circles whose centres are them- 
selves in motion upon other circles, the earth being 
the centre of the system. All the observations 
and speculations under this hypothesis contributed 
nothing to the development of a science of as- 
tronomy, hardly increasing the material out of 
which such a science could be constructed. 

It is with Copernicus that astronomy is born 
into the family of sciences as the eldest child. 
For centuries the general notion of the system, 
which probably originated with Pythagoras, was 
altogether overlooked, owing to the general accept- 
ance of the Ptolemaic astronomy. The claim of 
Copernicus to the glory of being the father of the 
science rests upon the fact that, after centuries had 
passed, he brought to light this ancient conception, 
and greatly increased the probability of its truth 
by his calculations and arguments. Here we meet 
the fresh beginning of another branch of science, 
and one that was indispensable to the further 
development of astronomy. Physical philosophy 
had its origin, too, in a distant past, and many 
illustrious names of thoughtful Greeks are asso- 
ciated with its early attempts to solve the riddle 
of the universe. P3^thagoras is placed at the 
origin of the Italic school, but history records no 

i8 



INTRODUCTORY 

systematic development of his teachings. The 
Ionic school, however, which is referred back to 
Thales, one of the ancient wise men of Greece, had 
a progressive development culminating in the 
physical treatises of Aristotle. But with this cul- 
mination its progress closed and " left the human 
mind to remain stationary on all such subjects for 
nearly two thousand years. The physical philos- 
ophy of these two schools is especially deserving of 
our study as exhibiting the character and fortunes 
of the most memorable attempt at universal knowl- 
edge that has ever been made. It is highly in- 
structive to trace the principles of this undertaking, 
for the course pursued was certainly one of the 
most natural and tempting that could be imagined ; 
the essay was made by a nation unequalled in fine 
mental endowments, at a period of its greatest 
activity and vigor; and yet it must be allowed 
. , . to have been unsuccessful."^ So physical 
science rested until the times of Copernicus and 
Galileo and Kepler and Newton, when, joining 
hands with astronomy, an advance was made which 
has ever since been going on with increasing velo- 
city to the present day. The whole conception of 
the physical world has been revolutionized in these 

1 Whewell, " History of the Inductive Sciences," Vol. I, page 56. 
19 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

modern times. A heliocentric solar system has 
taken the place of the geocentric. The stars have 
been resolved into suns like our own, and all the 
heavenly bodies are seen to be moving in their 
majestic orbits around remote centres. The laws 
of motion as discovered by Galileo and Kepler, 
and the law of gravitation, rule throughout the 
visible universe, and all the motions of the heavenly 
bodies are capable of being set forth in mathe- 
matical formulae. 

After the long period of inactivity in physics and 
astronomy had come to an end, the human mind 
was again thoroughly aroused, and discoveries 
crowded rapidly upon one another. On every side 
tempting fields of investigation and speculation 
opened, offering richer promises to laborers. The 
invention of the telescope made possible new 
views of the heavens. The moon's surface was 
scrutinized, the phases of the planet Venus were 
seen, the discovery was made of the rings of 
Saturn and the satellites of Jupiter and spots on 
the sun. Then Napier gave to mathematicians an 
incalculable aid to their efforts by the invention 
of logarithms. A twofold progress resulted from 
these inventions, — a rapid ingathering of a vast 
harvest of facts, and a widespread and most 

20 



INTRODUCTORY 

fruitful mathematical treatment of these facts 
of observation. 

The science of Mechanics became an attractive 
field of inquiry and investigation, resulting in the 
discovery and fo-rmulation of the laws of motion. 
Applying these mechanical principles to the 
motions of the planets, Galileo and Kepler deter- 
mined their elliptical orbits, their periods of revo- 
lution, etc. Then came Newton's great work, the 
" Principia," which may be primarily considered a 
work on Mechanics. Until a science of Dynamics 
was discovered and formulated, until the laws of 
earthly motion were divulged, the most profound 
and keenest intellects groped aimlessly in their 
pursuit of the laws of heavenly movements. Bacon 
and Kepler failed because there was wanting in 
their day a true theory of motion ; because there 
was not a science of Mechanics. 

Bacon himself bears witness to the futility of the 
efforts of the great minds of his time in construct- 
ing a true science of Astronomy. This great 
father of the inductive method declares that while 
Astronomy, up to that time, had had for her 
business to inquire into the principles or rules of 
the heavenly motions, and Philosophy into their 
causes, they had both so far worked without due 

21 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

appreciation of their respective tasks. Philosophy 
ignored facts, while Astronomy claimed assent to 
her mathematical hypotheses, which ought to be 
considered as mere steps and symbols of calcu- 
lation. He goes on to say : " Since, therefore, 
each science has hitherto been a slight and ill- 
constructed thing, we must assuredly take a firmer 
stand ; our ground being that these two subjects, 
which, on account of the narrowness of men's views 
and the traditions of professors, have been so long 
dissevered, are, in fact, one and the same thing, and 
compose one body of science." 

The guesses and speculations of that very great 
and illustrious mathematician, Kepler, to whom 
we are indeed more greatly indebted than to 
Copernicus himself for the establishment of the 
so-called Copernican Theorj^, are stated in form- 
ulae and phrases that to-day seem puerile and 
amusing. Thus he introduces a chapter of his 
work on the planet Mars : " A physical specula- 
tion, in which it is demonstrated that the vehicle 
of that Virtue which urges the planets, circulates 
through the spaces of the universe after the 
manner of a river or whirlpool moving quicker 
than the planets." He speaks of the " moving 
force, the niag7ietic 7iatiire, the immaterial virtue" 

22 



INTRODUCTORY 

of the sun, which cannot be said to convey any 
distinct conception. Kepler's physical theory, as 
applied to astronomy, was, in fact, the doctrine of 
vortices around the central bodies, and these vor- 
tices constantly whirling around these central 
bodies carry the moon and planets as the whirl- 
pool carries straws. He further asserts that these 
vortices are " an immaterial species." All these 
are mere conjectures, not founded upon ascer- 
tained facts, nor attempted to be verified by 
observation of terrestrial movements. 

Some score of years later, Descartes, the father 
of modern philosophy, himself a master in mathe- 
matics, set forth a similar " Theory of Vortices," 
incorporated in his " Principia Philosophise." He 
imagines three kinds of matter, the properties of 
which are equally imaginary. " The first kind of 
matter makes luminous bodies; the second, the 
transparent substance of the skies ; the third is the 
material of the opaque bodies, the earth, planets, 
and comets." Then he supposes that the motions 
of these parts take the form of vortices. By this 
means, the first kind of matter, which produces 
the luminous bodies like the sun, is collected to 
the centre of each vortex, while the second and 
subtile matter surrounds it, and by its centrifugal 

23 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

effort constitutes light, and the planets, composed 
of the third kind of matter, are carried round the 
sun by the motion of his vortex. 

For a considerable period this was the accepted 
theory of matter and of celestial mechanics. 
Many eminent philosophers and mathematicians 
readily adopted it, doubtless upon the reputa- 
tion of its illustrious author, who was a man of 
high claims in every department of speculation 
and " as a mathematician a genuine inventor of 
great eminence." Of course this theory did not 
long survive in the rapid progress of discovery 
that had already begun. It had no value whatever 
in the advancement of science, and is here alluded 
to only as an instance of theorizing without regard 
to discovered and verified facts, and without fol- 
lowing the inductive method of observation and 
experiment. Leibnitz, though not a follower of 
Descartes, had said that the Cartesian philosophy 
was the antechamber of Truth — a compliment 
scarcely deserved ; for, as Whewell pleasantly re- 
marked, " Those who first came into the presence 
of the Truth herself were those who had never 
entered this imagined antechamber, and those who 
were first in the antechamber were the last in pen- 
etrating farther." Playfair extends to Descartes, 

24 



INTRODUCTORY 

as a natural scientist, the doubtful credit of having 
rendered Newton a service " by having exhausted 
one of the most tempting forms of error." 

In England, before the days of Newton, there 
were many men of preeminent ability in mathe- 
matics who discerned the true character of the 
problem of curvilinear motion. Conspicuous 
among these was Hooke, of Christ Church, Ox- 
ford, " who distinctly stated that the planets would 
move in straight lines if they were not deflected 
by central forces; and that the central attractive 
power increases in approaching the centre in cer- 
tain degrees dependent on the distance," Here we 
have an attempt at a solution, of far greater value 
than all the speculations of all the former philoso- 
phers, who disregarded the careful observation of 
the laws of terrestrial mechanics. 

Reaching the work of Sir Isaac Newton, we are 
in the presence of the greatest scientific discovery 
ever made. The order and movements of the 
heavenly bodies stand forth in all their perfection 
and beauty. The guesses of the past were verified 
or refuted, the observations were mathematically 
expressed and justified, and the unity and harmo- 
nious order of the universe were made clear as the 
day. The ancient speculations of astronomers, by 

2^ 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

the effectual aid of physics and mathematics, were 
reduced to one all-embracing cosmic generaliza- 
tion, the science of Astronomy was created, and the 
whole physical universe was presented in a new 
and comprehensive aspect. 

The known solar system at that time consisted 
of sun, moon, earth, and five planets visible to 
the naked eye. Through all the centuries of the 
past, since the days when the Chaldean shepherds 
studied the starry heavens, no discoverer had ob- 
served another member of the solar system. It 
was not until a century had passed after the publi- 
cation of Newton's " Principia " that Herschel's tele- 
scope won the first great triumph in the discovery 
of Uranus. After the general acceptance of the 
Newtonian theory, the glorious labors of Lagrange, 
Laplace, and other mathematicians were necessary 
to remove many remaining difficulties connected 
with planetary perturbations and the inequalities in 
the moon's motion. Their illustrious labors bore 
their full fruitage a half-century later, when the dis- 
covery of Neptune by pure mathematical reasoning 
from the perturbations of Uranus furnished for 
this theory the most triumphant confirmation and 
demonstration known in the whole history of 
science. The sidereal heavens were not studied, 

26 



INTRODUCTORY 

at this time, beyond the cataloguing of such stars 
and nebulae as could be seen with the telescopes 
then at command. A century and a half had 
passed after Newton's great generalization before 
it was sought to bring the stars within it. Until 
less than one hundred years ago the ascertaining 
of the distance of a star had not been successfully 
attempted. So late as 1836 Auguste Comte de- 
clared such a feat to be impossible, and that the 
Newtonian theory could never be proved to extend 
throughout the stellar regions of the universe. 
Three years later Bessel measured the distance 
of 61 Cygni, and the subsequent study of the 
movements of double and multiple stars soon 
established the fact that the law of gravitation 
embraces the whole sidereal heavens. 

The development of another science, that of 
Chemistry, opened the way for marvellous advance 
in Astronomy. In 1774 Dr. Priestley found that by 
heating red precipitate an incombustible gas was 
obtained. This gas, the commonest element in 
nature, constituting " one-fifth of the atmosphere 
in volume, eight-ninths of the ocean by weight, 
and one-half the earth's soHd crust," was oxygen. 
This was the period of the emergence of Chemistry 
from the unfruitful alchemy of a distant past. As 

27 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

the science of Chemistry advanced, and the seventy- 
odd chemical elements were discovered, and all the 
constituent elements of earth and the atmospheric 
ingredients were ascertained, the mind of man 
sought to know whether or not all the shining orbs 
of heaven were alike composed. And here opens 
before us a chapter in the science of Astronomy 
which even the boldest speculation of half a cen- 
tury ago would have dismissed as a baseless dream. 
The invention of the spectroscope and the dis- 
covery of spectrum analysis have supplied the 
data for a celestial chemistry. 

" Hydrogen is detected in the far-off Dog Star and 
the nebula of Orion ; sodium, potassium, calcium, and 
iron in the sun ; demonstrating the gaseous character of 
the nebulae, and revealing chemical elements hitherto 
unknown, such as helium, a mineral first detected in the 
sun and afterward found in Norway." ^ 

More wonderful still is the fact that spectrum 
analysis enables us, through a slight shifting in the 
wave-lengths of the light it emits, to measure the 
motion of a star. We can by this means detect 
the approach or recession of a distant heavenly 
body. The spectrum of the star Algol tells a most 

1 John Fiske, " A Century of Science," p. 7. 
28 



INTRODUCTORY 

interesting story. Algol, a sun of the magnitude 
of our sun, has a dark body revolving about it 
nearly its own size ; and itself is in revolution 
round another dark body. The spectrum reveals 
the presence and gravitative effects of the two in- 
visible stars, and also explains, as due to irregular 
eclipses, its long observed variations in brilliancy. 
Thus again is witness borne to the uniformity and 
unity of the physical world. Not only are the 
laws of motion on earth identical with those of the 
whole material universe, but the same chemistry 
applies to celestial as to terrestrial phenomena. 

The questions ever present in the human mind, 
"Whence came this wonderful world? was it 
created by divine act? was it always as now? has 
it come to its present state and condition by 
gradual development and evolution? " have led to 
many attempts to construct a cosmogony. Some 
of these guesses of the ancients we shall hereafter 
consider. In modern times the Nebular Hy- 
pothesis of Laplace was the first fruitful effort to 
apply scientific facts and methods to the solution 
of these cosmic problems. The author of this 
theory, one of the very first mathematicians of all 
time, did not claim for it the authority of a demon- 
stration, but the most advanced physicists and 

29 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

astronomers of to-day assume its general correct- 
ness and accept the same as a valid working hy- 
pothesis. By this hypothesis we have the physical 
world originating in an infinitely diffused nebula 
possessing a rotary motion. Intense heat is gen- 
erated by physical or mechanical forces. Por- 
tions, cooling, give off their heat and contract, 
leaving rings behind, which themselves break up 
into globes rotating on axes and revolving round 
centres of gravitation. So the innumerable stars 
that fleck the immensities of space came into their 
present state, and their several systems were thus 
developed. Gazing at the heavens through the 
telescope, and studying the composition and states 
of development of the celestial bodies by means 
of the spectroscope, and the sensitive photograph 
plate applied to the telescope, we see suns and 
solar systems in every stage of evolution, from the 
nebula entering upon its cosmic being, to bodies 
like the moon, passing down to darkness, decay, 
and death. Though it may be that this hypothesis 
has not yet obtained the formal credentials of 
science entitling it to a place among its verities, 
it seems to withstand successfully all criticism, and 
to maintain an honorable position among the most 
probable theories of the evolution of the physical 

30 



INTRODUCTORY 

process. It has been stated by its great author 
in correct mathematical formulse, and observation 
affords us more and more satisfactory evidence 
of its truth. 

Sir Norman Lockyer has given to the world a 
cosmogonic theory quite different from the Nebu- 
lar Hypothesis of Kant and Laplace, which he 
calls the Meteoritic Hypothesis. It assumes that 
the stars have been made up by the combining 
together of masses of meteors, space being sup- 
posed to contain numberless swarms of these little 
bodies. It is altogether probable that these theo- 
ries taken together give the full account of the de- 
velopment of the sidereal and planetary systems. 
The meteoritic upbuilding may have been prelim- 
inary to the nebulous state. The forcible gather- 
ing together of the meteorites may have caused 
the intense heat by which the mass was vaporized 
and transformed into the nebulous state. Then 
begins the wondrous tale of contraction, the throw- 
ing off of rings and cooling and contracting into 
solid spheres supplied with air and water, fitted 
for the abode of life. 

These theories carry us back to a beginning of 
the physical process. I use the words " a begin- 
ning " with intent, for there is now arising a school 

31 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

of scientific philosophers who insist that the whole 
process is made up of series of evolutions and dev- 
olutions ad infinitttm. It is inconceivable, how- 
ever, that there should be no actual beginning of 
the entire process, unless we shall accept some 
such hypothesis as that which this treatise is in- 
tended to propose and support, — that THE PHE- 
NOMENA OF THE PHYSICAL PROCESS ARE ALL 
THE PRODUCTS OF THE ENERGY OF AN INFI- 
NITE, ETERNAL, INFINITELY ENERGETIC PSYCHI- 
CAL UNIVERSE, upon which the material world ' 
depends for its being and innumerable activities. 
An evolving world, passing from a universal homo- 
geneity to an infinite heterogeneity, must increas- 
ingly manifest the presence of manifold forms of 
energy, and demands a source of its ever increas- 
ing supply of active or kinetic power. If the 
physical process be only a phase of universal, 
infinite, and eternal activity; if this material world 
rests upon, and is interpenetrated by, the immate- 
rial, infinite, and infinitely energetic universe, — 
then we need not inquire as to its beginnings, for 
every activity is but an expression of an ever and 
everywhere present energy. This hypothesis sets 
aside at least one of those " transcendental and 
insoluble world-enigmas," which, according to 

32 



INTRODUCTORY 

Ernst Haeckel, Emil du Bois Reymond stated 
some years since before the Berlin Academy of 
Sciences, namely, " the origin of motion," 

Thus briefly have we traced the history of the 
development of the science of Astronomy, which 
is no less than the history of the physical process, 
until the organic world is reached. From our 
long flight out into the immensities of space, from 
our journey amid the wonderful revelations of 
Astronomy, we descend to earth, and resume the 
study of the record of man's pursuit of truth. The 
development of the science of Astronomy has re- 
sulted in a vast enlargement of the mental horizon 
with reference to space ; but the nineteenth century 
has witnessed also a notable enlargement with 
reference to time. 

The eighteenth century closed before any fruit- 
ful endeavor was made to study inductively the 
earth's history as written through the centuries in 
the stony volume of the earth's crust. Indeed, 
during the early years of the nineteenth century, 
men of intelligence and education could be found, 
who with unshaken confidence maintained that 
fossils had been created dead and petrified and 
placed by the hands of Omnipotence beneath the 
rock-ribbed surface of the earth. It was not until 
3 33 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

1830 that the science of Geology won its first 
and memorable triumph with Sir Charles Lyell. 
" Geologists before his time had been led to con- 
clude that the general aspect of the earth's surface 
with which we are familiar is not its primitive and 
permanent aspect, but there has been a succession 
of ages in which the relations of land and water, of 
mountains and plains, have varied to a very con- 
siderable extent." In order to account for such 
changes, geologists were disposed to imagine 
violent catastrophes brought about by strange 
agencies, in some vague and unaccountable way, 
utterly unlike those forces now at work in the 
visible and familiar order of nature. But Lyell 
proved that the very same processes now going on 
all about us are altogether sufficient to account for 
the changes in the inorganic world which distin- 
guish one period of the earth's development from 
another. It was then that attention was first drawn 
to the important element of time. These changes 
were slowly effected. Through long periods, 
unobtrusive and apparently inefficient agencies 
were at work, at length bringing forth by cumu- 
lative action marvellous results. Astronomy, as we 
have seen, steadily advanced toward the proof that 
in the abysses of space the physical forces are 

34 



INTRODUCTORY 

identical with those operating on earth. So Geol- 
ogy, carrying us back through long periods of time, 
shows us that the forces now at work are the same 
as those which have brought forth all the geologic 
changes since the remotest past. The philosophic 
significance and purport of all this in Geology are 
the same as proclaimed by the progress of Astron- 
omy. Of course, in the very earliest stages of the 
development of the earth's crust, the temperature 
was excessively high, and so phenomena were 
manifested no longer to be witnessed on the earth's 
surface ; but in other parts of the solar system, as, 
io¥ instance, on the great planet Jupiter, the same 
forces are at work producing the same results as in 
those far-off ages in the history of the earth.. 

" Ever since our earth cooled to a point at which its 
solid crust acquired stability, since the earliest mollusks 
and vertebrates began to swim in the seas, and worms to 
crawl in the damp ground, if at almost any time we 
could have come here on a visit, we should doubtless 
have found things going on at measured pace very 
much as at present, — here and there earthquake and 
avalanche, iire and flood, but generally rain falling, sun- 
shine quickening, ... ah as quiet and peaceful as a 
daisied field in June, without the slightest visible presage 
of the continuous series of minute secular changes that 
were gradually to transform a carboniferous world into 
what was by and by to be a Jurassic world, and that 

35 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

again into what was after a while to be an Eocene 
world, — and so on, until the aspect of the world that 
we know to-day should noiselessly steal upon us." ^ 

These conclusions of Sir Charles Lyell exerted 
an enormous influence upon men's habits of 
thought. The orderly ongoing of nature, the quiet 
working out of an advancing progress by the 
familiar forces ever operative, led naturally to a 
dynamical rather than a statical conception of 
the physical world. 

In the course of our brief review of the history 
of astronomy allusion has been made to celestial 
chemistry and the marvellous results attained by 
spectrum analysis. These achievements would 
have been impossible without the previous develop- 
ment of the science of Chemistry. This science 
may be said to have been born and reared in the 
nineteenth century. It may be positively asserted 
that the ancients — the Egyptians, the Greeks, and 
the Romans — never made the smallest contribu- 
tion to the science of Chemistry. Indeed, what 
could be expected of an age when its greatest 
thinker and scientist, Aristotle, did not hesitate 
to say that a vessel filled with ashes will hold 
as much water as if empty? When Priestley 

1 John Fiske, " A Century of Science," p. 12. 
36 



INTRODUCTORY 

discovered oxygen, in 1774, there was no science of 
Chemistry, and men of that day did not know what 
took place when a log of wood was burned on the 
hearth. Stahl, a contemporary of Newton, inven- 
ted, or rather imagined, the doctrine of phlogiston 
to account for combustion. This doctrine sup- 
posed that all combustible substances contained a 
common element — a preprinciple — called phlo- 
giston, which escapes in burning. This fire prin- 
ciple was regarded as having no weight, so as to 
avoid the conclusion following upon the discovery 
of the fact that there was no loss of weight in the 
process of combustion. The discovery of oxygen, 
and the further study of its properties, revealed the 
fact that whatever may escape during combustion, 
oxygen is always combined with the burning sub- 
stance. Then Lavoisier came with his balance 
and proved that when a thing burns, it unites with 
oxygen, and that the resulting product is equal in 
weight to the substance burned plus the oxygen 
drawn from the atmosphere. It did not take long 
for the awakened mind of man to step from this 
discovery to the verification of the truth that in 
all chemical changes nothing is lost, nothing is 
gained, and to formulate the fundamental law of 
the material world, the indestructibility of matter. 

37 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

Not only has the science of Chemistry discovered 
the seventy or more elemental substances, invented 
methods of innumerable transformations and com- 
binations, and formulated a system for the investi- 
gation of substances of inorganic nature, but it has 
entered the organic world and investigated the 
chemical processes in the living organism. Chem- 
ists have actually succeeded in building up from 
their elements several thousand compounds found 
ready-made only in the organisms of plants and 
animals, doing away with the idea that life-force is 
indispensable to the formation of these compounds. 
As yet, the most advanced chemists have been 
unable to produce protoplasm, — the physical 
basis of life, — - but there are many daring investi- 
gators who are confident not only of producing 
this ultimate compound, but of bringing forth a 
conscious, thinking, willing, and loving being 
artificially in their laboratories. . 

Here we step over the border line of another 
and still newer branch of science, Biology. To 
many who are not too conservative this science, as 
set forth by its more radical students, seems to 
venture beyond reason in its claims as to the 
possible limits of its discoveries. The writer 
of the article on Biology in "The International 

38 



INTRODUCTORY 

Encyclopsedia " sets forth the mechanical inter- 
pretation of biological facts in the following words : 
" Future discovery may prove that all the facts of 
biology, including those of consciousness, reason, 
volition, and moral obligation, are, in ultimate an- 
alysis, movements of matter in accordance with 
the mechanical principles which hold good through- 
out the inorganic universe." Although this young 
science has made remarkable progress in discovery 
and has already reaped a large harvest of facts, 
these claims sound like the groundless vauntings 
of youth or the baseless expectations of young 
manhood. 

It seems as if the actual discovery of spontaneous 
generation were now imminent. From various 
laboratories has come the declaration of reputable 
chemists and men of science that the discovery 
has indeed been made. It is now reported that 
Professor Burke, who for the past six years has 
been conducting experiments in the Cavendish 
laboratory at Cambridge University, has, by put- 
ting together in a test tube radium and sterilized 
bouillon, produced cultures presenting many 
appearances of vitality, such as growth and sub- 
division. This discovery has caused much alarm 
and concern on the part of the believers in special 

39 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

creations, who also believe that every new life is 
fresh from the hands of God. Those, too, who 
have felt themselves compelled to give a general 
assent to the doctrine of evolution, have thought 
to find place for divine interposition, if nowhere 
else, at least at the impassable chasm between the 
organic and the inorganic. This being successfully 
bridged, God is excluded from the whole process 
of physical development, which seems, therefore, 
to go on its way automatically, and to be self- 
explanatory. If the physical world be the eternal 
and infinite universe, then is there no place for 
God. On the generally accepted hypothesis of 
a deus ex machina, or even that of an immanent 
Deity, there can be no ground for a theist to stand 
upon if life can be chemically or mechanically 
produced. We cannot admit the unbroken con- 
tinuity of the physical process and still allow 
place for the divine agency. If the entire pro- 
cess is accounted for in terms of physical energy, 
then is there no need of a Creator or Sustainer 
of the world. Nevertheless, if all this and more 
were scientifically estabHshed, — if the rational 
and wiUing being should come to be manufactured 
to order without waiting for the slow and pain- 
ful processes of nature, — the hypothesis set forth 

40 



INTRODUCTORY 

in the following pages would not be unfavorably 
affected. 

Suppose the chemist shall succeed in producing 
protoplasm, and further suppose, upon being 
chemically produced, it should immediately spring 
into life, that would not prove life to be the pro- 
duct of the chemical process. In order to establish 
such a conclusion, it would be necessary to find 
the equivalence of the life force in mechanical 
terms. When, a generation ago, leading men of 
science were endeavoring to establish the spon- 
taneous generation of life, the most careful obser- 
vations and experiments were made. The liquid 
in which these new germs were expected to mani- 
fest themselves was boiled, so as to destroy all 
existing life, and the same was hermetically sealed, 
so as to prevent any other germs from the atmos- 
phere coming into it. Under these conditions life 
did not appear. It was thereupon concluded that 
life can come only from life. So if, as we have 
supposed above, the physical basis of life should 
be artificially produced with all the essential 
chemical properties, and life should be manifested 
therein, then it would be required of our biologist 
to show that there is no force in the universe, 
other than that he is able to investigate, which 

41 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

always manifests itself under such conditions. 
Living protoplasm and dead protoplasm, if not 
essentially different, differ wholly in function and 
properties. The one has powers of natural growth 
and development; the other is in a state of 
disintegration. 

All the processes of the living organism, so far 
as they can be investigated by scientific methods 
and appliances, are physical or chemical. But 
the ultimate forces and essential conditions are 
beyond the sphere of scientific investigation. 
Science can discover the law and develop the 
mathematical formulae of the force of gravitation, 
but what gravitation is, and how one body attracts 
another body at a distance, science has no well 
grounded hope of ever finding out. With all the 
wonderful discoveries of Chemistry peering into 
the most mysterious secrets of nature's penetralia, 
that science now confesses utter ignorance con- 
cerning affinity, the force that holds in combination 
the constituent elements of chemical compounds 
and causes the reactions taking place between 
material substances. The imagination has had its 
part in offering explanations, if not solutions, of 
this problem. Borelli and Lemery, followed by 
thousands less distinguished, imagined that the 

42 



INTRODUCTORY 

atoms or ultimate particles of matter were supplied 
with minute hooks, the shape of which determined 
the capacity of a particle for combining with other 
particles. Bergman, Bertollet, and others thought 
chemical affinity might be identical with the energy 
of gravitation. Berzelius, who played so large a 
part in the early development of the science of 
Chemistry, than whose name there is none more 
distinguished on the roll of honor of that science, 
sought to explain all chemical phenomena on the 
hypothesis that chemical combination was caused 
by the mutual attraction of electrically different 
substances. All these hypotheses, however, do 
not go any further toward an explanation of the 
transformations and combinations of substances 
than did the ancient idea that different atoms 
combined, or substances were transformed, because 
of the love or hate they felt for each other. This 
long ago rejected product of man's youthful imagi- 
nation seems to be adopted and employed by 
Haeckel in his last successful appeal for popular 
favor, " The Riddle of the Universe." 

So stand all the subordinate branches of Biology 
— zoology, embryology, and physiology — toward 
the question of what life is; and the ineffectual 
efforts to show vitality to be a form of physical 

43 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

energy by its transformation into some mechanical 
equivalent capable of being expressed in foot- 
pounds, ought to warn such scientists against the 
waste of most valuable time and effort in seeking 
that which by their methods must ever remain 
undiscoverable. Other biologists ignore or deny 
the existence of any such agency or energy. 
More reason, certainly, would the chemist have 
to deny chemical affinity, or the physicist to 
deny the force of gravitation. Treat it as we 
may, there is a vast and inexplicable difference 
between the organic world and the inorganic, 
between that which is living and that which is 
not alive. 

The physicist, too, in his present diligent search 
into the structure of matter, going down into the 
deepest region of speculation, expresses no hope 
of discovering the ultimate explanation. Professor 
Lodge, in " Modern Views on Matter," ^ which 
may be regarded as the latest authoritative declar- 
ation of the most recent findings of science in this 
field, says : 

"This, when established, will be a unification of 
matter such as has throughout the ages been sought ; it 
goes further than had been hoped, for the substratum 

1 Sir Oliver Lodge, " Modern Views," p. 13. 

44 



INTRODUCTORY 

is not an unknown and hypothetical protyle, but 
the familiar electrical charge. Nevertheless, of course, 
this is no ultimate explanation. The questions re- 
main, What, then, is an electric charge ? What is 
the internal structure and constitution of an electron? 
Wherein lies the difference between positive and nega- 
tive electricity? and What is their relation to the ether 
of space? " 

These are all legitimate questions, the answer to 
which may be discovered in the future, but beyond 
is the impenetrable mystery, What is electricity? 

One marked and suggestive characteristic of all 
the most recent and most promising investigations 
into the nature of the ultimate atom is the ten- 
dency toward reducing all material existence to a 
dynamic origin. From the vortex ring of Helm- 
holz and Thomson to the hypothesis stated in Sir 
Oliver Lodge's lecture from which we have just 
quoted, a material basis of the atom is more and 
more discredited. The time seems not far distant 
when Haeckel's hope of reducing his double law 
of substance to a unity will be realized, but not in 
accordance with his expectation. He would unify 
the law by making a compound statement of it as 
the " Law of the persistence of matter and force " ; 
but the empirical results now point to reducing 
matter to an expression of force. 

45 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

" It becomes a reasonable hypothesis to surmise that 
the whole of the atom may be built up of positive and 
negative electrons interleaved together, and of notlmig 
else. ... It is possible, but to me very unlikely, that 
the electron, as we know it, contains a material nucleus 
in addition to its charge, so in that case it need not be 
so concentrated because a portion of its mass would be 
otherwise accounted for. I say * accounted for,' but it 
would be rather true to say unaccounted for; for the 
mass which is explicable electrically is to a considerable 
extent understood, but the mass which is merely mate- 
rial (whatever that may mean) is not understood at all. 
We know more about electricity than about matter ; and 
the way in which electrical inertia is accounted for elec- 
tromagnetically and localized in the ether immediately 
surrounding the nucleus of charge, is comparatively 
clear and distinct. There may possibly be two different 
kinds of inertia which exactly simulate each other, the 
one material and the other electrical ; and those who 
hold this as a reasonable possibility are careful to speak 
of electrons as ' corpuscles,' meaning charged particles 
of matter of extremely small size, much smaller than an 
atom, consisting of a definite electric charge and an un- 
known material nucleus, which nucleus, as they recog- 
nize, but have not yet finally proved, may quite possibly 
be zero." ^ 

Further unification of the origin or source of the 
energy, as well as the material of the physical pro- 
cess, is promised us by the researches of Larmour, 
Rutherford, and others. It is becoming more and 
1 Lodge, "Modern Views," p. 13. 
46 



INTRODUCTORY 

more probable that there is no other source of 
light or any other form of radiation possible, ex- 
cept the change in the motion of electrons. ** It is 
known," says Lodge, " that the violent acceleration 
or retardation of electrons when they encounter 
an obstacle is responsible for the excitation of 
Rontgen rays. All light and all the Hertz waves 
or pulses employed in wireless telegraphy are due 
to electric acceleration ; and the greater the rate of 
change of velocity, the more violent is the radia- 
tion emitted." We seem thus to be getting back 
to the beginning of things. 

Another wonder meets us as we follow the guid- 
ance of certain of these most successful investiga- 
tors. The quest of the alchemists of the Middle 
Ages was the process by which one form of matter 
could be changed into another. In the laborato- 
ries of Professor Rutherford and of Mr. Soddy 
these transmutations have been observed by these 
careful experimenters. In radioactivity the 
radioactive substance throws off atoms of matter, 
leaving behind in its pores another substance, 
which has been examined even more completely 
than the projected portion. This remaining sub- 
stance is volatile, it slowly diffuses away and 
behaves Hke a gas. Many other qualities have 

47 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

been discovered. It is also radioactive, throwing 
away part of itself and leaving yet another resi- 
duum, itself radioactive. One of these residues 
thus left seems to cast ofif electrons simply instead 
of atoms of matter. All radioactive substances 
are not to be supposed to act precisely alike. 
The emanation from one may lose its activity 
rapidly and give rise to another substance retain- 
ing its power for some time. That thrown off by 
another element may last some time and generate 
a substance whose activity rapidly decays. 

" The transmutation of elements vaguely deduci- 
ble by skilful observers from spectroscopic details 
of solar and stellar appearances, the evolution of 
matter likewise caught sight of by chemists of 
genius, these were speculations but yesterday; 
now, in radioactive matter the process is seen to 
be going on before our very eyes." Through 
these daring, yet warranted, investigations into the 
ultimate structure of matter, we are brought to an 
atom which exists without a material basis, show- 
ing us matter as ultimately a manifestation of 
energy. When we shall have reached this dis- 
covery, we shall have arrived at the outermost 
boundaries of the physical process and the limits 
of possible physical investigation. 

48 



INTRODUCTORY 

Another branch of the science of Biology — His- 
tology, or the science of cells — has opened to us a 
most interesting and fruitful field of research. In 
1802, Bichat, a French physician, attempted to 
determine, with the aid of the microscope, the ul- 
timate constituents of the tissues and organs of the 
body, but without any valuable results. It re- 
mained for Matthias Schleiden to discover that the 
common element in all the tissues of vegetable 
organisms is the cell ; and very soon thereafter 
Theodor Schwann proved the same to be true ot 
all animal tissues, thus establishing the ultimate 
basis of all living organisms. " Kolliker and 
Virchow," to adopt the language of Haeckel, 
" proved that, in man and in all other animals, 
every tissue is made up of the same microscopic 
particles, the cells ; and these elementary organ- 
isms are the real self-active citizens which, in 
combinations of millions, constitute the cellular 
state, our body." Then we come upon another 
unifying principle, as follows : all these cells 
spring, by a process of subdivision, from one 
simple cell, the impregnated ovum. Not only 
when we trace the course of the life-history 01 
an individual organism back to its beginning in 
the impregnated ovum do we come finally to a 
4 49 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

primitive cell, but when we follow the process 
of development of the human organism from the 
primordial germ, the moneron, we start with the 
ultimate organism from which all forms of life on 
earth may be said to spring. This simple cytod, 
the whole body of which consists of soft, structure- 
less plasson, is more elemental than any cell in 
any higher organism, for it does not so much as 
possess even a nucleus, which belongs to every 
true cell, and is therefore absolutely without 
organs. Yet this primitive globule of proto- 
plasm is, in a sense, an organized intelligence. 
Dr. Gates, a recognized authority in histology, 
says : " Unicellular organisms possess all the dif- 
ferent forms of activity to be found in the higher 
animals." Binet, an eminent biologist, who has 
made a most exhaustive study of the psychic life 
of micro-organisms, remarks that the complexity 
of the psychic life of these ultimate living units is 
shown by the power of selection exercised either 
in the search for food, or in the manoeuvres attend- 
ing conjugation. " The act of selection," he 
further says, " is a capital phenomenon." As 
Romanes has, indeed, observed, ** the power of 
choice may be regarded as the criterion of psy- 
chical faculties." These primitive forms of hfe 

50 



INTRODUCTORY 

manifest in the simplest way the phenomena of 
the psychic Hfe of higher organisms — even of 
man. 

Romanes, in his great work, " Mental Evolution 
in Animals," distinguishes clearly between reflex 
action and instinctive action. The former, he 
explains, is non-mental, neuro-muscular adaptation 
to appropriate stimuli ; but instinctive action is 
something more than this, there is in it the ele- 
ment of mind. Curious evidences of mental oper- 
ation are observed in the conduct of Difflugia 
Ampulla, which inhabits a shell formed of particles 
of sand. This little rhizopod emits long pseudo- 
podia, which search at the bottom of the water for 
the materials necessary to construct a new case 
for the filial organism to which it gives birth by 
division. The pseudo-pod, having touched a grain 
of sand, is seen to draw the particle into the 
body of the tiny animal. Verworn, whose recent 
investigations have greatly illuminated this most 
interesting subject, in making certain experiments, 
placed about the animal small fragments of colored 
glass instead of sand, and soon noticed a heap of 
these fragments on the bottom of the shell. He 
then observed a globule of protoplasm issue from 
the shell. This was the offspring. Thereupon 

51 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

the bits of glass were ejected from the shell and 
enveloped the body of the new individual in a 
sheath similar to that encasing the mother. These 
bits of glass, held loosely together at first, are 
soon firmly cemented by a substance secreted by 
the body of the parent. 

Binet, commenting upon this experiment, makes 
certain very important observations. He says : 

" Two facts are to be remarked in this experiment ; 
first the act whereby the difflugia collects the materials 
for providing the young individual with a case is an act 
of preadaptation to an end not present, but remote. 
This act, therefore, has all the marks of an instinct. 
Further, the instinct of these little beings exhibits exact 
precision ; for they not only know how to distinguish, at 
the bottom of the water, the materials available for their 
purpose, but they in every instance take only the quan- 
tity of material necessary to enable the young individuals 
to acquire each a well-built case ; there is never an 
excess. It is interesting to note that this elemental 
primitive creature does not act differently from animals 
possessing more highly complicated organizations, and 
endowed with differentiated nervous systems, as for in- 
stance, the larvse of Phryganids, which form their sheath 
from shells, grains of sand, or minute slivers." 

Mind is manifest, as we see, from the very 
dawn of animal life, and everywhere exhibits the 
very same marks and characteristics. Life and 

52 



INTRODUCTORY 

intelligence in some degree are invariable concomi- 
tants in this material world, just as every beam of 
sunlight, when analyzed by the spectroscope, is 
seen to be composed of the actinic, as well as of the 
light and heat rays. The ever-increasing manifesta- 
tion of intelligence through instinct to reason, self- 
consciousness, and sporadic instances of genius, 
has always been concomitant with the evolution 
of the organism, the more complex and highly 
developed mental organism exhibiting the higher 
powers of intellect. So Romanes, and after him 
countless investigators of less distinction and 
genius, have held that " if the doctrine of organic 
evolution is accepted, it carries with it, as a neces- 
sary corollary, the doctrine of mental evolution, at 
all events as far as the brute creation is concerned." 
There seems to be some confusion of thought in 
this statement, and an unwarranted extension of 
inference from the verified facts of science. All 
that can be said in the name and under the warrant 
of science is that there has been an evolution of 
the material organ of mind, and that through this 
more and more complex and developed organ 
there have been manifested higher and higher 
forms of mental activity. There is no evidence 
whatever of an evolution of mind. We have no 

53 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

scientific method by which we can determine more 
or less of mentality in a scientific sense. The fact 
of evidence of higher manifestations of mind does 
not prove that these higher manifestations are 
not altogether accounted for by the complexity in 
structure and constitution of the physical organ 
of mind — the brain. 

We have seen that that which distinguishes in- 
stinct from mere reflex action is mentality. This 
mentality is not physically accounted for. It 
cannot be investigated by scientific appliances and 
methods. It is not transformable into any form 
of physical energy. It eludes all attempts to dis- 
cover its modes of activity. We know experiment- 
ally nothing at all about it. This being true, how 
can we say there has been an evolution of mind 
concomitant with that of the physical organism? 
Given an intelligent or psychical universe, the 
forms of whose energy are crowding to manifest 
themselves in what we call the material world, 
then, whenever and wherever the organic evolution 
brings forth the sufficiently complex organism, the 
higher and higher forms of mind activity are 
observed. 

We are informed — and the statement is based 
upon the authority of Darwin and Romanes — that 

54 



INTRODUCTORY 

both primary and secondary instincts are heredit- 
able. But even supported by such authority and 
that of almost every great biologist, we humbly, 
but most positively, decline to accept it as true. 
There is not the slightest evidence, of a scien- 
tific character, of any inheritance transmitted from 
parent to offspring, except that which is physical. 
The fact that the instinctive intelligence of the 
moneron is identical in nature with that of man 
does not so much as raise a presumption that the 
mind of man is an evolution from the rudimentary 
intelligence of the primordial germ. All that can 
be proved is the development of the higher organ- 
ism from the primal and unorganized globule of 
protoplasm. There are but two possible interpre- 
tations of the facts of evolution as science warrants 
them to us. First: The increasing intelligence, 
being concurrent and coincident with the growth 
and development of the organ of mind, is the 
essential product of the organism. This theory 
has been accepted by materialists; but it is, at 
least, unscientific, for it asserts that a material 
organ, whose processes can all be experiment- 
ally accounted for, can bring forth an immaterial 
product altogether inscrutable and beyond the 
reach of our methods of investigation. The second 

55 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

supposition is, that cosmic forces of a higher 
order than those of the physical process manifest 
their activities whenever the degree of development 
of the organism is reached at which these activities 
can utter themselves. These forces of the unseen 
universe, ever pressing forward to manifest their 
activities in the material world, can find expres- 
sion only under certain appropriate and adequate 
physical conditions. The sunbeam, as we have 
seen, is composed of the heat, light, and actinic 
rays. The heat wave, striking the body, produces 
the sensation of heat; the light wave, beating upon 
the sensitive organ of sight, produces vision ; but 
we possess no organ of sense capable of respond- 
ing to the subtle touch of the chemical wave. In 
the green leaf of the tree this imperceptible ray 
decomposes the carbonic acid of the atmosphere 
and supplies nourishment to the vegetable world. 

Further to illustrate from the familiar phenom- 
ena of the material world. The dynamo in rapid 
motion in the power-house, as we say, generates 
electricity. This electricity is conducted along 
wires until at length a part of the current, being 
arrested in its course, is transformed into light. 
Or, again, traversing the wire, the current passes 
into a motor and is transformed into motion and 

56 



INTRODUCTORY 

motive power. This current would forever exist 
unknown and unobserved, unless conditions favor- 
able to its manifestation were created. Nature, 
indeed, is but the manifestation under favorable 
conditions of the invisible forces of the universe. 
The germination of the seed furnishes another apt 
illustration of the theory we are supporting. The 
life principle, if such exists, cannot be supposed to 
be imprisoned in the undeveloped seed, and, under 
certain favoring conditions of moisture and temper- 
ature, to liberate itself and pass through innumer- 
able metamorphoses of being. If the seed by any 
means has lost its vitality, then moisture and heat 
will but hasten its decay and disintegration. That 
which, as we say, has destroyed the life of the grain 
of wheat has, in truth, only unfavorably affected the 
organism, so that the unseen energy we call life 
cannot manifest itself therein. This is a more 
reasonable hypothesis. All the phenomena are 
accounted for within the physical process, so far 
as science enables us to study them. 

In recent years attempts, not encouragingly 
successful, have been made to reduce psychology 
to a science, and to study the phenomena of the 
soul in accordance with scientific methods. Pro- 
fessor James introduces his treatise on psychology 

57 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

with the statement that the subject is to be treated 
as a natural science. After traversing the whole 
range of experimental psychology, he concludes 
with these significant words : 

" When, then, we talk of psychology as a natural 
science, we must not assume that that means a kind of 
psychology that stands at last on solid ground. It 
means just the reverse ; it means a psychology particu- 
larly fragile, and into which the waters of metaphysics 
leak at every joint, a psychology all of whose elementary 
assumptions and data must be considered in wider con- 
nections and translated into other terras. It is, in short, 
a phrase of diffidence and not of arrogance ; and it is 
indeed strange to hear people talk triumphantly of the 
' New Psychology,' and write histories of psychology, 
when into the real elements and forces which the word 
covers not the first glimpse of clear insight exists. . . . 
This is no science, it is only the hope of a science. 
The matter of a science is with us." ■■• 

This confession of failure to construct a science 
of psychology, as embracing and accounting for 
all the facts of psychological experience, ought to 
satisfy us that, in striving to make psychology a 
branch of natural science, we are attempting to 
employ methods of observation wholly inapt and 
inadequate to the matter to be investigated. It is 
like striving to see with the ears, or to hear with 
1 Professor James, " Psychology," pp. 467 and 468. 
58 



INTRODUCTORY 

the sense of touch. Of course, that which the 
so-called science of psychology does find itself 
competent to treat of is already covered by 
the pure sciences of Physiology, Chemistry, and 
Physics. When the psychologist comes to talk 
about states of consciousness, ^^ me" and " /" or 
thoughts without a thinker, or the knower to whom 
the knowledge belongs, scientifically considered, he 
merely talks in a jargon without any meaning. 

Professor James further asserts : " Whenever I 
try to become sensible of my thinking activity as 
such, what I catch is some bodily fact, an impres- 
sion coming from my brow or head or throat or 
nose." In spite of the common-sense of mankind, 
every careful observer must reach this same con- 
clusion, and thus admit that all we know of such 
phenomena as objects of sense perception (which 
phenomena, as such, are alone capable of scientific 
investigation) are the bodily facts, the physical, 
chemical, and neurological activities. The diagrams 
which are produced by the experimental apparatus 
in psychological laboratories, reveal three lines, we 
are informed. One is set down as due to respira- 
tion ; the second as due to blood circulation ; 
the third remains uninterpreted, but is certainly 
due to nerve activities, about which, as yet, 

59 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

we have gained very little positive information. 
There is in these diagrams no suggestion of any 
other than physical activities, and we are driven to 
accept one of two conclusions : Either there is 
in psychological phenomena, nothing beyond or 
besides the physical element or activity, or the 
real facts of psychology are postulates beyond the 
limits of scientific investigation. 

To conclude this chapter with the words of 
Professor James : 

" It seems as if consciousness, as an inner activity, 
were rather a postulate than a sensibly given fact, the 
postulate, namely, of a knower as correlative to all this 
known. . . . The present psychology is in the condition 
of physics before Galileo and the laws of motion ; of 
chemistry before Lavoisier and the notion that mass is 
preserved in all reactions. The Galileo and the La- 
voisier of psychology will be famous men indeed when 
they come, as come they some day surely will, or past 
successes are no index to the future. When they do 
come, however, the necessities of the case will make 
them metaphysical. Meanwhile, the best way in which 
we can facilitate their advent is to understand how 
great is the darkness in which we grope, and never to 
forget that the natural science assumptions with which 
we started are provisional and revisable things." 



60 



CHAPTER II 

THE PHYSICAL PROCESS 

Matter and Motion perceivable only by our Organs of 
Sense — All Physical Phenomena due to an Unseen 
Force, which is not Physical — The Causal Relation 
of Thought to Physical Changes in the Brain — The 
Partition between the Known and the Unknown due 
to the Limitation of our Sensible Knowledge — The 
Virtual Identity of Heat, Light, Electricity, and 
Chemical Action — The Dynamical Nature of the 
Atom — The Nature of Ether — A New Conception 
of the Atom derived from Investigation of Radio- 
active Substances — Formation of the Molecule — 
The Transitoriness of the Physical Universe — Three 
Stages in the Development of the Organic World — 
Man as more than a Corporeal Being. 



Can there not be in the universe a multitude of things which 
matter, as we know it, is incompetent to express ? Is it not the 
complaint of every genius that his material is intractable, that it 
is difficult to coerce matter as he knows it into the service of mind 
as he is conscious of it, and that his conceptions transcend his 
powers of expression ? — Sir Oliver Lodge. 

This little plot of physical universe which is now our tem- 
porary home has become amenable to truly spiritual control. — 
Lodge. 

The reconciliation between opposing views (Free Will and 
Determinism) lies in realizing that the universe of which we have 
a kind of knowledge is but a portion or an aspect of the whole. — 
Lodge. 



CHAPTER II 

THE PHYSICAL PROCESS 

THE term " physical world " is used by 
many in our day as identical in meaning 
with the term " universe." To such there 
seems to exist nothing that is not material or 
physical. It is true that we know nothing of 
phenomena except as manifestations of the activi- 
ties of material things, or as coming to our experi- 
ence through the action of a material organism. 
The energy of the physical world becomes known 
to us through the conduct of matter under its 
influence, and the phenomena of life, of conscious- 
ness, and of mental effort are associated in all our 
experience with material organs — the body and 
the brain. 

Exclusive consideration of these facts has been 
fruitful, in more recent years, of denials of the 
possibility of any existence or activity whatever, 
except under purely physical conditions. The 
unconditional assertion of such a negative would, 

63 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

however, be presumptuous in the extreme, inas- 
much as it would imply that there is no other 
possible mode of being than that with which our 
own sensible experience acquaints us. 

In the physical world unseen forces make them- 
selves manifest in the conduct of matter. Through 
our senses we have knowledge of this world as 
phenomenal only. That which lies back of these 
manifestations is not the object of sense perception. 
What we call matter is perceived by us only as it 
acts or reacts upon our organs of sense. 

The forms of energy — heat, light, electricity, 
and actinism — are modes of motion. Heat and 
light, as they affect us, are the striking force of 
the undulations of ether. As these forms of energy 
are so many modes of motion, there must be in 
each case something material that moves. The 
force is not the thing moving, but the power by 
which it moves. Through the teachings of physi- 
cal science we are able to resolve the phenomena 
of motion into two categories, which we may call 
the dynamical and the material. The former is 
the force or power to which motion is due, the 
latter the material condition under which it is 
manifested. 

Force is conceivable as active even apart from 
64 



THE PHYSICAL PROCESS 

material conditions, but cannot manifest itself to 
our senses except as it produces motion of some 
portion of matter. In common speech we cer- 
tainly attach to the word " cause " the idea of 
power, and it is one of the recognized duties of 
science to give some answer to the question, 
" What is the power that originates and continues 
the motion of wave or corpuscle?" It is admitted 
that matter of itself cannot initiate or suspend 
motion. A current of electricity, for instance, 
may be the result of the decomposition of water 
by zinc in sulphuric acid, but the power by which 
the decomposition takes place is not an attribute 
or property of the acid or of the metal, but a 
power acting under such conditions. In like 
manner, if we inquire into the cause of the germi- 
nation of a grain of wheat, we discover the physi- 
cal conditions to be heat, oxygen, and moisture, 
but none of these, nor all of them, could bring 
about this result unless there were present the 
organized protoplasm capable of manifesting life. 

Every physical result or mechanical activity can 
be traced, through a more or less extended series 
of cause and effect, back to a cause not accounted 
for as an effect of any physical cause. I enter a 
cotton factory, I observe a spinning machine in 
S 65 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

operation. I trace the power by which it is made 
to perform its complicated movements through the 
mechanism and the machinery back to the expan- 
sive power of steam in the engine. The steam is 
communicated to the engine from the boiler where 
it is generated. This generation is due to a force 
tending to cause the separation of the particles of 
water in the boiler. Heat is the force, and the heat 
in this instance is due to the combustion of coal 
in the furnace. This combustion is the forcible 
union of carbon and oxygen. Here we pause. We 
cannot account for the so-called affinity which is the 
power tending, under certain known conditions, to 
bring these two elements into combination. We dis- 
cover no physical cause of chemical affinity. This 
must be the ultimate term in the physical series. 

Let us take another series for illustration. I see 
the hands of a great clock in a church tower mov- 
ing slowly on its face. I trace the power causing 
this motion through the complicated contrivance 
back to the wound-up weight. The energy mani- 
fested in this effect is due to the elevation of the 
weight. In order that energy may be so stored 
up as to be gradually used in producing this con- 
tinuous motion, a man is employed to wind the 
clock at certain times. This man does a definite 

66 



THE PHYSICAL PROCESS 

amount of work in thus storing up energy in the 
weight The work performed by him is an ex- 
penditure of energy which is not a part or product 
of his body, but is derived from the food he eats. 
The animal organism cannot create energy, nor 
can it produce that combination of elements called 
protoplasm, the physical basis of life. In the veg- 
etable kingdom is produced protoplasm, and the 
energy expended in the effort of winding up 
the clock was, in the last instance, derived from 
the vegetable organism, which is, in fact, the 
laboratory of animal food. Here in this laboratory 
we discover certain physical elements of which 
protoplasm is composed, and certain physical con- 
ditions under which the combination of these ele- 
ments takes place. The actual power by which 
protoplasm is formed is beyond the sphere of our 
investigation, outside this physical process. 

Let us take still another series. Rays of light 
reflected from an external object fall upon the 
retina of my eye and form there a picture of a 
table. A certain physical effect produced upon 
this network of nerves is carried along the optic 
nerve to the brain. In the brain chemical and 
physical changes take place. Thus far we follow 
along the track of physical phenomena. But when 

67 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

we reach the act of perception whereby we are 
made conscious of the sensation, we are confronted 
by a phenomenon which cannot be said to belong 
to the physical series. 

Again, I thrust forth my hand to strike an 
object. This thrust is due to the action of certain 
muscles, which action resulted from the trans- 
mission of nerve force from the brain. Back of 
this series of activities remxains the act of will, 
which we regard as the initial power of the 
sequence, and which lies outside the region of 
scientific investigation. 

In the several series of activities traced by us, 
we have followed the conduct of matter under the 
exertion of force, proceeding from effect to cause, 
never resting so long as we could conceive a 
physical antecedent. The fact that the mind ever 
works upward from effect to cause, regarding the 
cause of each effect as the effect of a preceding 
cause, shows its assent to the law of causality. In 
tracing this sequence we do not regard any cause 
within the physical series as the ultimate term 
from which is derived the energy of the series. 
The mind feels an intellectual necessity to think 
back all changes into sufficient causes of which 
they are the issues ; and each set of antecedent 

68 



TFIE PHYSICAL PROCESS 

phenomena into which we refund new phenomena, 
themselves occasion a fresh intellectual demand 
for a preceding cause, and still the mind is left 
unsatisfied until it rests in a truly originative or 
unconditioned cause. If this intellectual need for 
a cause of phenomena were withdrawn, there would 
be no rationality in, and therefore no reasoning 
possible about, the physical process. This limited 
physical process does not offer us any satisfactory 
explanation of its own existence, and therefore we 
are forced to explain it by something above and 
beyond what we call the material world. It is 
clearly evident that beyond the sequence of cause 
and effect which we are able to account for within 
the physical process, human reason demands an 
efficient power, not of this same order, transcend- 
ing the sphere of our investigation. 

The story of Sir Isaac Newton and the falling 
apple affords another good illustration of the 
matter we are considering. Sir Isaac had seen 
many an apple fall before that particular one at- 
tracted his attention. On that occasion the result 
was marvellous. Rays of light from the descend- 
ing object fall upon the eye of the philosopher, 
throwing upon the retina a picture of an apple at 
each successive point of its descent. We are able 

69 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

to trace this physical experience. Some physical 
effect produced upon this network of nerves in the 
back part of the organ of vision is carried along 
the optic nerve to the brain. In the brain certain 
physical and chemical changes take place. At the 
same time there is the conscious perception of an 
external object in motion. This last term does 
not belong to the physical series, for we cannot 
here discover any transformation of physical 
energy. Throughout that series we can trace 
and account for every transformation of energy. 

With the conscious perception of the falling 
apple began another series of activities of an 
altogether different nature. The mind of the great 
mathematician had been started upon a train of 
thought, and proceeded to develop a difficult and 
complicated mathematical calculation, resulting in 
the discovery and enunciation of the law of gravi- 
tation. This latter psychical series, leading up to 
the greatest achievement of the human mind, has 
no physical characteristics. In it we find no trace 
of the transformation of physical energy. How- 
ever, along with this train of reasoning there runs 
a series of physical changes. These concomitant 
physical phenomena consist of certain vibrations of 
brain molecules, certain oxidations with formation 

70 



THE PHYSICAL PROCESS 

of carbonic acid, water, and urea. This pro- 
cess we are able to investigate scientifically. It is 
not at all conceivable that the act of perception of 
the falling apple, or rather the physical process 
resulting in the conscious perception, could have 
been the initial cause of these chemical and physi- 
cal activities and changes in the organ of thought, 
the brain, which attended the reasoning process 
that at length resulted in the formulation of the 
grand law of gravitation. We must accept the 
fact, inscrutable though it be, that there exists a 
causal relation between the concurrent processes 
of thought and of the physical changes in the 
brain. The falling apple ofifered the occasion for 
the train of mental activities, but the latter activi- 
ties caused the concurrent physical changes. In 
this way may we positively establish the fact that 
physical phenomena of an altogether different 
order are caused by psychical agency or activities. 
So we may conclude that, though in every series of 
cause and effect which we are able to trace within 
the physical process we reach a point where our 
powers of investigation cease to avail us, there is 
in reality no actual break in the continuity of the 
causal process. The break is not in the series, but 
at the limit of our sensible knowledge. 

71 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

Sir Oliver Lodge declares : " We occasionally 
ignore the fact that there must be a subjective par- 
tition in the universe, separating the region of 
which we have some inkling of knowledge from 
the region of which we have absolutely none." 
Indeed, this demanded partition is provided in the 
very limitation of our sensible knowledge. What 
we call the physical world or process is that region 
of the universe in which sensible experience is 
possible. Sensible experience is determined by 
the coordination of the environment with the 
powers and capacities of the physical organism. 
That region within which certain forms of cosmic 
energy so act, react, and cooperate as to render 
the resulting phenomena capable of sensible ap- 
prehension by beings physically constituted as we 
are, is, to such beings, their world of possible 
experience, — is, indeed, their only world. 

The world of our sensible experience, then, is 
not really partitioned off from the rest of the 
cosmos. There are no subjective barriers or 
enclosing impenetrable boundaries through which 
the energy of the physical process may not 
possibly escape. Neither are there certain 
furtive influences or manifestations of psychical 
energy from the unseen, which transgress these 

72 



THE PHYSICAL PROCESS 

imagined boundaries and trespass on our side 
thereof. It is quite a different case. We, inhabit- 
ing these physical organisms, are in the very 
midst of all the infinite forms of cosmic energy, 
but without sensible knowledge of any of these 
incessant activities, save those only which are 
capable of affecting one or more of the bodily 
senses — those avenues through which all our 
knowledge of our physical environment comes 
to us. 

This present world is, then, but the phenomenal 
representation of some of the forces of a higher 
world-order. These phenomenal representations 
depend for their clearness and adequacy upon 
the plasticity or power of the material world or 
organism to give expression to forces of a higher- 
world order. 

In this physical system the more subtle media 
give effect to subtler forces. Thus, through the 
grosser medium of the air sound is propagated, 
and through the subtler ether are produced the 
effects, heat, light, electricity, and chemical action. 
Now, of all these forces science has found a bond 
of closest relationship. Each of these forms of 
energy is capable of being transformed into the 
others without appreciable loss. Heat can be 

71 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

transformed into motion, so motion can be trans- 
formed into heat and light and electrical energy. 
In fact, it appears that there is no real distinction 
of forces into various kinds. The apparent dis- 
tinction depends rather upon the media or con- 
ditions of their manifestations than upon anything 
in their essential nature. All the forces of the 
physical process are correlated and of like origin. 
There is some unifying principle behind all the 
varying manifestations of force in the material 
world. 

Every physical phenomenon reveals both matter 
and force. We cannot know matter except as ac- 
tive. We cannot know force except as it produces 
material activity. We cannot conceive of matter 
as existing without force; we can conceive of 
force or energy as existing without or apart from 
matter. Mass is supposed to be made up of 
molecules and atoms. The atom which can at all 
fulfil the conditions of the problem as at present 
stated must be dynamical. The vortex atom of 
Helmholtz and Thomson is such an atom. Pro- 
fessor Clifford tells us clearly what this vortex- 
motion is : 

" Imagine a ring of India-rubber, made by joining 
together the ends of a cylindrical piece, to be put onto 

74 



THE PHYSICAL PROCESS 

a round stick, which it will just fit with a little stretching. 
Let the stick now be drawn through the ring while the 
latter is kept in its place by being pulled the other way 
on the outside. The India-rubber has, then, what is 
called vortex motion. Before the ends were joined 
together, while it was straight, it might have been made 
to turn around, without changing positions, by rolling it 
between the hands. Just the same motion of rotation it 
has on the stick, only that the ends are now joined 
together. All the inside surface of the ring is going one 
way, namely, the way the stick is pulled, and all the 
outside is going the other way." 

Such vortex rings may often be seen projected 
in smoke from the funnel of a locomotive. They 
rise in the air, every particle having a motion of 
its own with reference to the centre of the ring, 
and sail away, preserving for a long while their 
separate motions and identity. In these instances 
the vortex motion owes its origin to friction. 

The atoms of which all mass is composed origi- 
nate in the ether, which is hypothetically a per- 
fect, incompressible, frictionless fluid. Helmholtz 
proved, among other things, that this vortex- 
motion could not originate in a frictionless fluid, 
but that if such motion were once started under 
such conditions, it could not be diminished by any 
mechanical or physical force in the present world- 
order, but must go on so long as such fluid exists. 

75 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

We are compelled to believe in the beginning of 
the vortex-atoms, but cannot assign their origin to 
any force or power within the present physical 
process. 

But what are we required to believe regarding 
this ether which is conceived to fill all space, and 
interpenetrate all material bodies occupying the 
interstices among atoms? The hypothesis, as we 
have before said, is of a perfect, incompressible, 
frictionless fluid, which, to meet all ^the conditions 
of the problem, must be supposed to possess the 
most strangely contradictory properties. This 
fluid, Professor Jevons observes, might be regarded 
as an infinitely solid adamant. Sir John Herschel 
calculates the amount of force exerted at any point 
in space in the propulsion of waves of light, and 
finds it to be more than one trillion times the 
elastic force of ordinary air at the earth's surface, 
so that on this supposition the pressure of ether 
upon one square inch of surface must be about 
seventeen trillion pounds. Notwithstanding this, 
we are to believe that the resistance offered to the 
motions of the planets and other heavenly bodies 
is inappreciable. Professor Jevons adds: "All 
our ordinary notions must be laid aside in contem- 
plating such an hypothesis ; yet it is no more than 

76 



THE PHYSICAL PROCESS 

the observed phenomena of light and heat force 
us to accept." 

The ether, we now see, is very unHke ordinary- 
matter as known to us. It may be regarded in some 
respects as a hquid, in others it manifests the proper- 
ties of a sohd. It is both hard as adamant and at the 
same time perfectly elastic. It is sensitive to every 
slightest impulse, and a disturbance anywhere causes 
a tremor felt on the surface of countless worlds. 
Why do we accept the existence of this mode of 
material existence, the characteristics of which are 
so contradictory to those of ordinary matter as 
our experience reveals them to us? Because the 
undulatory theory of light and heat compels us to 
admit the existence of such a substance. 

Certainly the discovery of the ether has enlarged 
our experience and demands a new definition of 
matter. The ether is a kind of matter and not 
something other than matter. As well might we 
say that a quantity of gas is not matter because its 
properties are not identical with those of a solid 
body. " The supposition that the ether may be 
something essentially different from matter is con- 
tradicted by all the terms that are used in describ- 
ing it." The ether, then, may be regarded as the 
primitive state of matter. 

77 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

How, then, are we to conceive this primitive state 
of matter? Professor Clifford may again give us 
an answer: 

" It has to be supposed that even where there are no 
material molecules, the universal fluid is full of vortex- 
motion, but that the vortices are smaller and more 
closely packed than those of ordinary matter, forming 
altogether a more finely grained structure." 

The dynamical or kinetic atom is, as we clearly 
see, the unit of all matter. May not motion in the 
abstract, or as a mere exertion of pure force apart 
from any substance whatever, be the ultimate 
atom, and universal vortex-motion the primitive 
matter, or ether? The recent investigations of 
radioactive substances have led to a new concep- 
tion of the atom as a field of action, so to speak, — 
" a definite space within which are moving many 
thousand particles negatively charged." It has 
been shown, too, that electricity in motion has the 
properties of matter so far as inertia is concerned, 
and perhaps in other, if not all, respects. This 
discovery is a long advance toward our supposition 
that the ultimate atom is pure force altogether 
apart from substance of any kind.^ 

In his article on " The Atom " in the Ninth 

1 See anfe, p. 45, et seq. 
78 



THE PHYSICAL PROCESS 

Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Clark 
Maxwell speaks of the vortex theory as being the 
most promising yet propounded. "The vortex 
ring," he says, " satisfies more of the conditions 
than any other atom heretofore imagined." Pass- 
ing from atoms and their nature to those supposed 
systems of atoms termed molecules, that philoso- 
pher asserts the production of molecules once for 
all, and that they are not now being manufactured. 
As disclosed to us by means of the spectroscope, 
these molecules are the same whether found in the 
earth, or in Sirius; whether in combination with 
the carbon ages ago buried in the earth, or 
occluded in the iron of a meteorite wandering 
through unknown epochs in trackless space. 
Then he remarks: 

" The process by which the molecules become distrib- 
uted into distinct species is not one of which we know 
any instance going on at the present, or of which we 
have as yet been able to form any mental representa- 
tion. The formation of the molecule is, therefore, an 
event not belonging to the order of nature under which 
we live. It is an operation of a kind which is not, so 
far as we are aware, going on in the earth or in the sun 
or the stars, either now or since these bodies began to 
be formed. It must be confined to the epoch, not of 
the earth or the solar system, but of the establishment 
of the existing order of nature ; and until, not only these 

79 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

worlds and systems, but the very order of nature itself is 
dissolved, have we any reason to expect the occurrence 
of an operation of a similar kind." 

Here the origin of atoms and molecules is re- 
ferred to an older and higher order of things. 
Thus, in all our thinking we are wont to refer the 
origin of the things that are seen to the things that 
do not appear. 

The temporal and transient character of the 
physical world is taught by many eminent scien- 
tific writers. Thus Tait declares, in his " Recent 
Advances in Physical Science," " All portions of 
our science, especially that beautiful one, dissipa- 
tion of energy, point unanimously to a beginning, 
to a state of things incapable of being derived by 
present laws of tangible matter and its energy from 
any conceivable previous arrangement." Balfour 
Stewart may be quoted as one of the authorities 
upon this point: 

" It will be seen that we have regarded the universe, 
not as a collection of matter, but rather as an energetic 
agent — in fact, as a lamp. It has been well pointed 
out by Thomson that, looked at in this light, the uni- 
verse is a system which had a beginning and must have 
an end, for a process of degradation cannot be eternal. 
If we could regard this universe as a candle not lit, then 
it is, perhaps, conceivable to regard it as having always 

80 



THE PHYSICAL PROCESS 

been in existence ; but if we regard it rather as a candle 
that has been Ht, we become absolutely certain that a 
time will come when it will cease to burn." 

These two scientists, in " The Unseen Universe," 
reach the conclusion that " the visible universe 
must have had its origin in time," and with cer- 
tainty, " that process will come to an end." All 
this is what would take place, even if we allow the 
indestructibility of ordinary matter. But we may, 
perhaps, suppose that the very material of the 
visible universe will ultimately vanish into the 
invisible. 

It may be well to quote a more recent scientific 
authority upon the temporal character of the 
physical world or process. We therefore give the 
words of Sir Oliver Lodge in a recent lecture. 
After speaking of the evidence supplied by the 
careful study of radioactivity that the atoms 
themselves are liable to decay, he says: 

" For practical purposes the atoms are permanent' 
even as the solar system appears to be permanent ; yet 
we know that all these systems are in reality transitory, 
as terrestrial structures like the Pyramids, or as the 
mountains and the continents themselves, are transitory ; 
of all these things it may be said that, in any given 
form, they have their day and cease to be. 

" If we allow ourselves to speculate, we should say 

6 8l 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

that the whole of existing matter appears liable to pro- 
cesses of change, and, in that sense, to be a transient 
phenomenon. Whether the total amount of matter in 
the universe is constant likewise, as much disappearing 
at one end by resolution into electrons as is formed at 
the other end by their aggregating together, is at present 
quite unknown ; and indeed it is clear that we have now 
become far immersed in the region of speculation. 
Nevertheless it is speculation not of an illegitimate 
character, for it is very consistent with all that we know 
about the rest of the material world. Astronomy tells 
us that the cosmic scheme, though it looks permanent, 
is subject to constant flux. In the sky we see solar 
systems and suns in process of formation by aggregation 
out of nebulae ; we see them rise in brilliancy, maintain- 
ing a number of planets in health and activity for a 
time, and then slowly become subject to decay and 
death. What happens after that is not certainly known ; 
it may be by collision a nebula may be reconstructed 
and the process started again, though so long as there is 
only a force of one sign at work (gravitation only) it 
would seem that ultimately the regenerative process 
must come to an end." 

There was a moment in the course of the 
world's development when, without commotion or 
revolution, without disturbance or anarchy, a 
certain collocation of material elements mani- 
fested for the first time the phenomena of life. 
Upon this point we may quote the thoughtful 
words of Mr. Wallace : 

82 



THE PHYSICAL PROCESS 

" We point out that there are at least three stages in 
the development of the organic world when some cause 
or power must necessarily have come into action. The 
first stage is the change from inorganic to organic, when 
the earliest vegetable cell, or the living protoplasm out of 
which it arose, first appeared. This is often imputed to 
a mere increase of complexity of chemical compounds ; 
but increase of complexity, with consequent instability 
— even if we admit that it may have produced proto- 
plasm as a chemical compound — could certainly not 
have produced living protoplasm, which has the power 
of growth and of reproduction and of that continuous 
organization of the whole vegetable kingdom. Here, 
then, we have the indications of a new power at work, 
which we may term ' vitality,' since it gives to certain 
forms of matter all those characteristics and properties 
which constitute life." 

The second stage is that of the introduction 
of sensation or consciousness, the beginning of 
animal life. This event he regards as still more 
marvellous and still more completely beyond all 
possibility of explanation by matter, its laws and 
forces. Here again we draw upon the unseen 
world for an explanation. " No verbal explana- 
tion, such as the statement that life is the result of 
the molecular forces of the protoplasm ; or that the 
whole existing organic universe, from the amoeba 
up to man, was latent in the fire-mist out of which 
the solar system was developed, can afford any 

83 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

mental satisfaction, or help in any way to a 
solution of the mystery." 

The last stage is that of the advent of man, 
when psychical endowments came to be of more 
importance than any physical power. 

The present physical process, then, includes all 
those worlds and systems of worlds known or 
conceivable, existing in space or any substance 
or fluid having physical properties, filling all 
extension. It embraces the earth with all its 
myriad forms of existence, mineral, vegetable, 
and animal, constituting what we call the natural 
kingdom. 

Man as an animal is a natural being and lives in 
the material world ; but as a loving, thinking, 
feeling, and willing spirit, he is supernatural and 
has his being in the unseen world. Man as a 
corporeal being is known to us through our senses. 
The color of his hair or eyes, the contour of his 
face, his bearing and general personal appearance, 
are the marks by which we recognize a friend 
through the sense of seeing. The tone of his voice 
conveys to our minds through the ear the knowl- 
edge of his presence. But as a personal being, as 
a thinking, loving, and purposing soul, he is re- 
vealed by his perceptible conduct and actions. 

84 



THE PHYSICAL PROCESS 

These are the symbols or indices of what he is ; 
his desires, his aims and character are revealed to 
my conscious soul in this way, I read off, in his 
outward acts, those spiritual experiences which I 
myself have known, thus extending my knowledge 
beyond the things that are seen into the world of 
things not seen. Words, the signs of ideas, and 
sentences, the symbols of thought, speak to our 
spirits of the inner life and its experiences. The 
habitual expressions, and the tones with which 
they are wont to be uttered, portray to us the 
personality unseen within. Then, too, in the prod- 
ucts of human genius which the race cherishes 
through the centuries, we are brought into 
acquaintance with the great souls long since 
departed from among men. Every line and 
column that entrances the beholder in the 
masterpieces of art or architecture was born of 
the human soul, begotten by some mighty impulse 
from the Unseen. 

For out of thought's interior sphere 
These wonders grew to upper air. 

The physical process and all these subordinate 
processes are matters of fact; so far as science 
can discover, there is included in them nothing of 

85 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

agency. If there is agency anywhere, it is not 
in the selective process, nor the evolutionary pro- 
cess, nor in the physical process, but behind 
them, antecedent to them, and independent of 
them. 



86 



CHAPTER III 

EVOLUTION 

Creation-Myths — Harmony of the Mosaic Cosmogony 
with the Theory of Evolution — Ancient and Modern 
Cosmologies — Preparations for the Establishment of 
the Evolution Theory — Evolution of Man from the 
Moneron — Cooperation of the Various Organs in 
Man — Psychical Evolution not Inferable from 
Physical Evolution — Specific Structures in the 
Thought-Centres of the Brain of Man not found in 
the Brains of Anthropoid Apes — Weismann's Theory 
of Heredity — No Discoverable Difference between 
Dead and Living Protoplasm — Haeckel's Assump- 
tions with Regard to Psychical Phenomena. 



We find that the Darwinian theory, even when carried out to 
its extreme logical conclusion, not only does not oppose, but lends 
a decided support to, a belief in the spiritual nature of man. It 
shows us how man's body may have been developed from that of 
the lower animals under the law of natural selection ; but it also 
teaches us that we possess intellectual and moral faculties which 
could not have been so developed, but must have another origin, 
and for this origin we can find an adequate cause only in the 
unseen universe of Spirit. — Alfred Russell Wallace. 



CHAPTER III 

EVOLUTION 

"^ M ^HE greatest, vastest, and most difficult 
I of all cosmic problems," says Professor 
Haeckel, " is that of the origin and 
development of the world — the question of crea- 
tion, in a word." He further tells us that evolution 
is the key to this all-embracing problem. Men 
of thought have in all time sought to find out the 
beginnings of things. Whence came this world in 
which we live ? By what means and methods has 
it become what it is now? From the very earliest 
periods of which we have any record of men's 
thoughts we find an almost universal belief in crea- 
tion. This belief has come down to us in thou- 
sands of cosmogonies, world-myths, and poems — 
creations of the imagination in the childhood of 
the race. All these creation-myths referred the 
creation to supernatural power. God, or the gods, 
brought all things into being in the beginning. 
In almost all these theories of the origin of things 

89 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

the Creator is supposed to have made all things as 
a great artificer or architect. He follows a definite 
plan and makes a world as a skilful mechanic 
would build a house. However, the creation- 
myths generally represent the marvellous power 
and wisdom of the Creator as displayed in the 
fact that he makes all things out of nothing. 

Among the primeval cosmogonies, those of the 
Semitic races — the Phoenicians, Babylonians, and 
the Hebrews, as set forth in the first chapter of 
Genesis - — are alone worthy of any particular 
consideration. In all these the universe is repre- 
sented as existing in chaos and darkness before 
the creation of the world as known to us. 
The earth is without form, and void. Dark- 
ness hides the abysm of chaos, and only the 
breath or spirit of God broods with fecundating 
power over the broad expanse of the watery deep. 
The Phoenician form of this myth may be thus 
briefly given : At the beginning of things nothing 
existed but limitless chaos and spirit. Then 
entered Desire, born of the spirit and love. 
Another child or product of this union was Mof, 
the impregnated watery abyss out of which sprang 
all the seeds of creation. The sun, the moon, and 
the stars also came forth from the water, and were 

90 



EVOLUTION 

endowed with intelligence and set in the heavens 
as the watchers and guardians of the world. Soon 
air and land and sea were heated by the sun, and 
winds arose and clouds. Then followed violent 
storms of wind and rain and thunder. By these 
thunder storms animated shapes, male and female, 
began to stir in sea and on the land. 

The Babylonian myth is less poetic and more 
supernatural. It starts with the same primal abyss 
of darkness and water. Out of this abyss are 
generated men of all sorts of grotesque shapes, 
and gods innumerable. Every student of these 
ancient creation-myths must be far more impressed 
with the broad contrast in their details as compared 
with the Hebrew form, in Genesis, than by the 
general agreement. In Genesis there is offered 
no genealogy of God. In His sublime majesty 
He exists before all things, and by the word of 
His mouth He calls all things into being. At His 
presence the darkness disappears, and light springs 
forth. At His word the earth brings forth the 
grass and the green herb. The rising continents 
are covered with vegetation. At His command 
the waters give birth to the fishes and creeping 
things and fowls of the air. There is here nothing 
of the architect, the artificer, or the engineer. It 

91 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

is not fanciful to interpret in terms of evolution 
this beautiful account, which, in the order of its 
days of development, is wonderfully in accord 
with the geological periods of modern science. 
There is here no attempt to represent in grotesque 
forms the mighty forces which, obedient to the 
divine command, bring forth and develop all forms 
of life upon the face of the earth. 

It must be admitted that none of these cos- 
mogonies gives us an account of the origin of the 
universe. There is in existence when the curtain 
is run up on this scene of creation the formless 
watery abyss, and over it the concealing darkness, 
and above all God calling the new world into 
existence. There is here no suggestion of the 
creation of the physical world out of nothing. 
The story reveals mind bringing order out of 
material chaos and calling into activity physical 
forces bringing forth the conditions of life, growth, 
and development. The first chapter of Genesis 
is much more easily interpreted upon the theory 
of evolution than upon that of special creations. 
It recognizes the origin of the physical process 
out of a preexisting order of things, which to our 
bodily senses was but chaos and darkness. This 
cosmogony does not attempt to account for the 

92 



EVOLUTION 

origin of the universe. God and the universe, so 
far as Genesis teaches to the contrary, are eternal 
and infinite. 

Among the earhest cosmologies given us by the 
Greek mind is that of Empedocles. This philoso- 
pher combats stoutly the hypothesis of absolute 
generation. He urges that nothing which pre- 
viously was not can come into being. That which 
is generally regarded as coming into being results 
in reality only from the commingling of previously 
existing elements. He declares there is no mean- 
ing to the term origination. Empedocles, no 
doubt, was the earliest philosopher who held and 
taught the hypothesis of evolution. Accordingly, 
he teaches : " Since the higher forms of life can 
arise only out of the lower, these latter must be 
the lower stages through which the former must 
pass." Anaxagoras, one of the greatest of the 
early Greek philosophers, " reduced all origin and 
decay to a process of mingling and unmingling," 
assuming as elements an unlimited number of 
substances, which he called the seeds of things. 
Originally there existed an orderless commin- 
gling of these primitive substances. The divine 
mind — simple, unmixed, passionless reason — 
brought order out of chaos and formed a world. 

93 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

Anaxagoras finds the moving and shaping force 
of the world in a world-ordering mind. Mind 
is the finest of things, and brings into motion 
matter which is inert and without order, and so 
creates out of chaos an orderly world. 

Plato declares that the world, or cosmos, is not 
eternal, but generated ; that matter without form or 
quality existed from eternity, and was in disorder, 
assuming a variety of distorted and meaningless 
shapes, until at length God came forth as a world 
builder and transformed all for ends of good. 
The Creator formed first the soul of the world, and 
to this soul joined its body. Thus were order and 
proportion brought to the chaotic mass, causing it 
to assume determinate mathematical forms. 

The Stoic cosmology teaches that whatever is 
real is material. Matter and force are the two 
ultimate principles. Matter is, of itself, motion- 
less, inert, and unformed, though capable of 
receiving all motions and forms. Force is the 
active, moving, and plastic principle. It is in- 
separably joined with matter. The originating 
and directing force of the universe is God. God 
is the breath or spirit permeating the universe and 
containing the rational germs of all things. God 
forms the world by the transformation of the 

94 



EVOLUTION 

original divine fire into air and water. This water 
is separated into three parts, — a part becoming 
solid earth, a part remaining water, and a third part 
being changed into air. Earth and water are inert 
or inactive principles, air and fire are forceful and 
active. There is a periodic change in the world. 
At the end of a certain cosmical period creation is 
absorbed into the Deity, and again takes its rise 
from the divine. 

Among the mediaeval theologians and philoso- 
phers, Maimonides, Albertus Magnus, Thomas 
Aquinas, and others less illustrious, held that the 
world is not eternal, that it was called into ex- 
istence out of nothing by God's almighty power 
at a determinate instant of time, with which instant 
time began. 

Until very recent times the most advanced 
thinkers, excepting some few distinguished philos- 
ophers, believed in the origin of the world and of 
all forms of life on earth by special creation. 
Some such cosmogony as that given us in Genesis 
was universally accepted and held by scholars as 
well as by people at large, until within the last 
forty years. In the latter part of the eighteenth 
century, when the great awakening occurred, and 
was followed by the wonderful progress in science 

95 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

which glorified the last century, Goethe, who was 
as acute as a scientist as he was great as a poet, 
adopted a theory of evolution, and set it forth in 
two profound treatises in 1 790. But among the 
most illustrious of the scientists of the early years 
of the nineteenth century Lamarck alone can be 
named as an able exponent of a theory of develop- 
ment. In his " Philosophie Zoologique " this 
scientist entirely rejected the notion of special 
creations, and pointed out some of the important 
factors in the evolution of life. The distinguished 
anatomist, Cuvier, and the no less distinguished 
embryologist, Baer, however, with many other able 
men in the several branches of biology, resisted 
any inference from their works in favor of any 
general theory of evolution. 

It was not possible to establish a theory of evo- 
lution upon a firm basis until a more adequate 
classification of plants and animals could be 
effected, and until a more exact and extensive 
knowledge of geology was acquired. The grand 
classification of Cuvier provided the first desider- 
atum, and the investigations of the great geologist, 
Sir Charles Lyell, furnished the second. Just as 
the laws of the movements of the heavenly bodies 
eluded the search of the profoundest and keenest 

96 



EVOLUTION 

intellects until a science of dynamics was dis- 
covered and formulated and the laws of terrestrial 
movements were divulged, so was it impossible to 
formulate the principles of the evolution of the 
world and living organisms until the special 
sciences had been so far developed as to furnish 
the data necessary therefor. 

The marvellous development of the several 
branches of science, especially of biology, during 
the first half of the nineteenth century furnished 
the data and created the conditions for the formu- 
lating of a definite and rational theory of evolution 
as the method of creation. Kant and Laplace had 
offered and developed the nebular hypothesis, 
affording a satisfactory account of the development 
of all celestial systems and bodies out of a univer- 
sal nebulous condition. These two philosophers, 
however, did not attempt to derive this universal 
condition from a more primitive one, nor did they 
offer any suggestion as to the origin of motion in 
this homogeneous mass. 

The French anatomists, among whom Cuvier 
was chief, gave to the world a classification based 
upon a careful study of the internal structure of 
organisms. " Cuvier himself, about the year 1817, 
brought palaeontology and zoology into systematic 
7 97 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

relation, effecting a grand classification of all ani- 
mals in time and space, and thus most effectively 
prepared the way for a general theory of evolu- 
tion." Another illustrious forerunner of evolution 
was the embryologist Baer, who, in his memorable 
treatise published in 1829, showed the development 
of the ovum in iitero to " consist in a change from 
homogeneity to heterogeneity through successive 
differentiations." Though Baer thus reached the 
very boundary line of the law of evolution, he 
never became an evolutionist. In the hands of 
later evolutionists that which he discovered and 
described became a complete epitome of the whole 
process of organic development. 

The physical world, as science now reveals it to us 
in all the ages of the past, is a process of develop- 
ment. Excepting the materialists, nearly all scien- 
tists to-day believe, with Emil du Bois-Reymond : 

The divine omnipotence, unthinkable ages ago, 
created all this raw material of the world in such wise 
that it should be endowed with inviolable laws to control 
the origin and progress of all forms and beings, inorganic 
and organic ; that all worlds and systems of worlds 
should come into being, evolving through all phases of 
development from this all- pervasive nebula up to the 
solid earth, the fit abode of life ; that here on earth rudi- 
mentary organisms should arise, from which, without 

98 



EVOLUTION 

further assistance, the whole of living nature could be 
evolved, from a primitive bacillus to the graceful palm- 
wood, from the primitive micrococcus to Solomon's 
lovely wives, or to the brain of a Newton." 

The process of evolution is identical with the 
the physical process. The atom, as we have seen, 
is the initial product of evolution, and its first 
creation was the beginning of the material world. 
The famous scientist and philosopher, Clark Max- 
well, as we have before quoted, declared that 
atoms and molecules are not products of forces 
now known to be operative in the physical world, 
but such as must have prevailed at the beginning 
of the present order of things. The molecules are 
combinations of atoms, having the general proper- 
ties of matter, each, however, having its peculiar 
characteristics. The molecular forces, cohesion, 
adhesion, and chemical affinity, operate among 
these small combinations of atoms. Out of these 
the mass of matter was evolved, and in the begin- 
ning stretched in perfect homogeneity through 
space. The second great world enigma, as stated 
by Emil du Bois-Reymond, here presents itself; 
that is, the origin of motion. How came this uni- 
versal homogeneity to enter upon the process of 
differentiation into ever-increasing heterogeneity? 

99 
LOfC 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

We have hereinbefore set forth briefly the theory 
of Kant and Laplace concerning the origin and 
development of the heavenly bodies. First, the 
rotation of the universal nebula, then the throwing 
off of immense rings, themselves becoming vast 
globes of incandescent gas. These, in turn, shrink 
off smaller equatorial rings, which become the 
nebulae of the several bodies of a solar system. 
Heat, light, electricity, and all the molecular forces 
are operative, and the developing world moves on, 
multiplying the evolving bodies in every state of 
development from the nebula to the solid earth. 
Here the torch of investigation is passed by astron- 
omy into the hands of geology, and through the 
many periods of the earth's development we pursue 
the process of evolution in its orderly course. 
The incandescent globe, filling space beyond the 
orbit of the moon, condensing, casting off a ring 
out of which the moon is formed, shrinks at length 
into its present dimensions. Forces with which 
we are now familiar are at work, and slowly and 
in beautiful order the earth is fitted for the abode 
of Hfe. 

Another world enigma here confronts us, namely, 
the origin of life. At a certain instant a definite 
chemical compound, which in all its physical 
100 



EVOLUTION 

properties can be chemically accounted for, mani- 
fests the phenomena of life. This globule of pro- 
toplasm can hardly be said to be an organism, 
since it has no organs, not so much as a nucleus, 
yet it contains, at least, the promise of all subse- 
quent life. Thence in orderly advance the 
evolution of organic nature proceeds. 

The ultimate unit of life in the vegetable kingdom 
is the cell, and the distinguishing characteristics 
of the living are here revealed. In animal life the 
same origin of the organism is established. The 
phylogeny as well as the ontogeny of the human 
body shows that organism to have had its origin 
in a primordial germ. The unorganized moneron 
is the first parent of man considered as the end of 
the whole process of organic evolution, and the 
individual man begins his physical being in an 
impregnated ovum. Every step of this marvellous 
process has been minutely investigated by modern 
scientists, and it is seen to be the complete account 
of the origin and development of physical man. 
We find no break or chasm interrupting this pro- 
cess of evolution through the many ages of the 
past. There appears no intervention from without 
in all this advancing course, nor any need for such 
intervention. 

lOI 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

Science traces the long and ever-widening course 
of the process of evolution from the simple cell 
through the more and more complicated organisms, 
and investigates the function of each persistent 
variation in figure or organ, each new departure 
from the type which results in some advantageous 
differentiation. The unorganized mone^'on develops, 
at length, a nucleus, then pseudopodia as means 
of locomotion, which evolve into legs and wings. 
The jelly-like plasma develops also a firm frame 
of cartilage and bone for the greater protection of 
vital organs, which are evolving and differentiating 
into numerous contrivances for the many functions 
of the living organism. This division of labor 
among the various organs necessitates some con- 
trivance for unity of action, lest there be schism 
in the body ; so cooperation is developed in the 
nervous system, uniting all parts of the multi- 
cellular body into a great cell commonwealth, 
each cell co5perating with every other cell for one 
common purpose. These innumerable cells are 
divided into many classes for the performance of 
certain definite functions, in all of which the wel- 
fare of the whole organism is the supreme object. 
Now, as science studies these cells, they are seen 
to be only so many little contrivances subserving 

I02 



EVOLUTION 

so many physical purposes. They construct tissue ; 
they develop organs on an invariable plan ; they se- 
crete and excrete juices and effete substances ; they 
form and operate lines of communication among all 
the little cell communities in the corporate common- 
wealth. They act as if endowed with intelligence, 
which unerringly directs their remarkable skill to- 
ward the realization of their several purposes. The 
actions of these cells and organs, so far as they 
effect physical results, are the legitimate subjects 
of scientific investigation. When, however, the 
scientific method is employed to discover the psy- 
chical cause of vital phenomena or those of mind, 
the quest must prove fruitless, because irrelevant. 
When scientists of materialistic predilections, 
like Haeckel, predicate " cell-souls " to account 
for otherwise unaccountable phenomena of mind 
and intelligence, their inference transgresses the 
boundaries of scientific investigation. They have 
a right to speculate regarding the physical cause 
of any physical result, but when they come to 
attribute some cause not of the material order to 
account for phenomena, they indulge in conjecture. 
If, however, this conjecture accounts for all the 
known facts without violating the laws of reason, 
such conjecture becomes a probable theory. 
103 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

Along with the progressive evolution of higher 
and higher organisms and the improvement of 
physical organs has proceeded an ever-increasing 
intelligence. From this fact Romanes concludes 
that as we accept the theory of physical evolu- 
tion, so must we believe in a concurrent mental 
or psychical evolution. The acceptance of the 
former compels the acceptance of the latter. To 
this we take decided exception. The theory of 
the evolution of the whole physical process and of 
every physical organ and organism is impregnably 
established. The evidence of the truth of evolu- 
tion as the mode of creation is overwhelming. 
The world of thinking men to-day unquestioningly 
accepts it as proved. But in the whole course of 
this development from the aboriginal fire-mist to 
the wonderful organism which we call the physical 
man, with all its perfected organs, there is no trace 
of the evolution or development of the inteUigence 
or mind more and more clearly and marvellously 
manifested in the advancing course of physical 
evolution. We do not know in what this intelli- 
gence or mind consists. We cannot weigh or 
measure it. We cannot discover or investigate 
any of its properties. We cannot transform any 
of the forms of physical energy into thought, 
104 



EVOLUTION 

which we regard as the differential attribute of 
the psychical. Huxley, as elsewhere quoted, 
declares that in the name of science he knows 
nothing, and never expects to know anything 
about the psychical phenomena which are con- 
nected with certain known physical activities. 
And Professor Clifford says, " The physical phe- 
nomena go along by themselves, and the psychical 
go along by themselves." He cannot as a scientist 
discover any causal relation between them. In 
his " Riddle of the Universe," Professor Haeckel 
reminds us that thirty-three years before he had 
published a theory to the effect that " every living 
cell has psychic properties, and that the psychic 
life of the multicellular animals and plants is merely 
the sum total of the psychic functions of the cells 
which build up their structure." Such declara- 
tions, uttered as upon the authority of demonstra- 
tion, are at least misleading. There is no evidence 
in the world to the effect that living cells have 
psychic properties. All the authority of science 
and of philosophy, as well as the common-sense of 
mankind, is arrayed against such a declaration. 
Where are these psychic properties to be found in 
the living cell? Do they belong to certain of the 
elements of which protoplasm is composed, or are 
105 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

they properties of the compound? Do they inhere 
in dead matter, or are they rather the products of 
vital activities ? If these properties belong to the 
cell as such, as would appear from the fact that 
the psychic life in the lower groups — the Algae 
and sponges — is shared equally by a// tJie cells 
of the body indiscriminately, how can certain cells 
be relieved of these properties so that all psychic 
functions may be performed by a select portion of 
them in the higher groups which have a nervous 
system and a brain? It is inconceivable that 
essential properties could be dispensed with v/ith- 
out destruction of the cell itself. The invention 
of cell-souls to explain psychical phenomena is 
simply a product of the imagination. The cell- 
soul must, then, be explained, which is a no less 
difficult task than the explanation of the phe- 
nomena themselves. To state that a certain 
organic change in circulation of nutritive matter, 
such as distinguishes the animal life from that 
of the plant, implies a psychological advance, is 
'simply to utter sounds without sense. All the 
change we can have any knowledge of in this 
instance is simply physical. The fact that this 
physical improvement in the organism is accom- 
panied by a radical change in psychic life does 
1 06 



EVOLUTION 

not force upon us the conclusion that psychic Hfe 
has taken the same long step in evolution. " We 
find the highest development of the animal cell- 
soul," says Professor Haeckel, " in the class of 
ciliata, or ciliated infusoria. When we compare 
their activity with the corresponding psychic life 
of the higher multicellular animals, we find scarcely 
any psychological difference." This fact strongly 
opposes the theory of psychic development, for if 
no advance is observable in the psychic life of 
higher multicellular animals, there certainly has 
been no psychological evolution. If Professor 
Haeckel means only that the cells of the infusoria 
and the corresponding cells of the higher organism 
manifest identical psychic phenomena, then the 
so-called psychological development must be due 
to the development of differentiated cells. 

It is altogether in accord with our purpose to 
accept all that science has shown to be true con- 
cerning the evolution of the physical organism, 
and also to insist upon the correctness of the view 
that along with this development there is ever 
a higher and higher manifestation of the phe- 
nomena of mind. We further insist that with 
every decided progressive change in the physical 
machinery of intelligence, there is manifest a 

107 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

correspondingly distinct advance in mentality. In 
each of the numerous stages into which Professor 
Haeckel divides the long period of development of 
the nervous centre, he points out the well-marked 
advance in the manifestation of intelligence. 

With the cyclostomata, the earliest group of the 
craniota, we find the beginning of brain evolution. 
In the modern representatives of this primitive 
group, the petromyzontes, " we have the fore- 
termination of the cord expanding into a vesicle, 
which then subdivides into five successive parts — 
the great brain, intermediate brain, middle brain, 
little brain, and hind brain : these five cerebral 
vesicles form the common type from which the 
brain of all craniota has evolved, from the lamprey 
to man." ^ The subsequent evolution of the brain 
is characterized by the more distinct division of 
the five cerebral vesicles until the mammalia are 
reached. In the order of mammals the brain 
development is marked by a " preponderant 
development of the first and fourth vesicles, the 
cerebrum and cerebellum, while the third vesicle, 
the middle brain, disappears altogether." It is 
during the Tertiary period that we observe the 
" typical development " of the cerebrum which 

1 Haeckel, " Riddle of the Universe," p. 167. 
108 



EVOLUTION 

emphatically distinguishes the later from the earlier 
mammalia. In the brain of the anthropoid apes 
is observed the " special development of the cere- 
brum, so prominent a feature in man, and which 
is the root of his preeminent achievements." 

We are informed by Professor Haeckel that " the 
differences of brain structure which separate man 
from the anthropoid apes are slighter than the 
corresponding interval between the anthropoid 
apes and the lower primates." Then, without 
warrant of the facts he has just before adduced, 
proving the slow and steady development of the 
nervous system and brain. Professor Haeckel 
illogically states his conclusions as follows : 
" Consequently the historical gradual evolution 
of the human soul from a long chain of higher and 
lower mammal souls must, by application of the 
universally valid phyletic laws of the theory of 
descent, be regarded as a fad which has been 
scientifically proved." It is clearly evident that 
the proof of the development of the physical organ 
of mind cannot be regarded as proof of the evo- 
lution of mind itself. The fact that ever fuller and 
fuller manifestations of psychic phenomena are 
concurrent with this development in no way 
affords evidence of the development of mind. 
109 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

Above we have quoted Professor Haeckel to the 
effect that the differences of brain structure which 
distinguish man from the anthropoid apes are 
comparatively slight. Paul Flechsig, however, 
proved that in the case of man very specific struct- 
ures are to be found in one part of the so-called 
thought centres. No other mammals possess 
these, and they, therefore, afford an explanation of 
the vast superiority of the mental powers of man. 
It is proved by careful observation that the cere- 
brum is the organ of consciousness and mental 
action, whether in man or the lower order of 
animals. The pathology of brain diseases has 
been most fruitful in results regarding the locality 
of certain faculties of the mind. Familiar facts 
furnish positive proof that the phenomena of con- 
sciousness are dependent upon chemical or other 
physical changes in the substance of the brain, for 
instance, the well-known effects of certain bever- 
ages. Tea and coffee stimulate thought, wine and 
beer intensify feeling, while chloroform and other 
drugs put the brain to sleep. 

If Weismann's theory of heredity shall be estab- 
lished, — and it now seems to be gaining accept- 
ance with many eminent scientists,— it will be 
required of us to believe that only congenital 
no 



EVOLUTION 

variations are hereditary. If this is true, any de- 
parture from the typical form of a species whereby 
the individual is improved cannot be accounted for 
by effects of environment, or by use and disuse, 
or in fact by any other physical cause. Let us 
examine this important theory of Weismann as we 
find it briefly stated for us by Mr. Wallace. 

" The fact that the germ cells do produce with 
wonderful accuracy, not only characteristics of the 
species, but many of the individual characteristics of 
parents or more remote ancestors, Weismann thinks can 
be accounted for on two suppositions only which are 
physiologically possible. Either the substance of the 
parent germ cell, after passing through a cycle of 
changes required for the production of a new individual, 
possesses the capability of producing new germ cells 
identical with those from which that individual was 
developed, or the new germ cells arise, as far as their 
essential and characteristic substance is concerned, not 
at all out of the body of the individual, but direct from 
the parent germ cell. This latter view Weismann holds 
to be the correct one, and on this theory heredity de- 
pends on the fact that a substance of special molecular 
composition passes from one generation to another. At 
every new birth a portion of the specific germ plasm 
which the parent egg cell contains is not used up in 
producing the offspring, but is reserved unchanged to 
produce the germ cells of the following generation. 
Thus the germ cells, so far as regards their essential 
part, the germ plasm, are not a product of the body 

III 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

itself, but are related to one another in the same way as 
are a series of generative unicellular organisms derived 
from one another by a continuous course of simple 
division. A portion of the very same germ plasm from 
which the germ cell, then the whole organism of the 
parent, was developed, becomes the starting-point of 
the growth of the child." 

Now, it is very evident that, upon this theory, no 
characteristics in the offspring can appear differing 
radically from the ancestral type, and thus uni- 
formity in species is secured and accounted for. 
But if any variation is manifest in the individual 
tending toward its improvement and elevation 
above its species in the scale of being, it cannot be 
accounted for on this theory; and since this theory 
claims to ofifer the " only supposition physiolog- 
ically possible," we must look for the cause outside 
the physical system. 

To escape the question of the origin of the atom, 
and of the initiative impulse of universal motion. 
Professor Haeckel denies any beginning in time 
and space of this physical process. Yet his very 
language refutes his claim and his logic. He 
speaks of mass and ether as filling all space. Is it 
conceivable that an infinite space could be filled ? 
Does not the very idea of " filling " inevitably 
imply finite limits and bounds of that which is 

112 



EVOLUTION 

filled? Is not extension — the attribute of the 
material world — a term of limitation? Nothing 
having extension as a property can be without 
metes and bounds. To attain to any veritable 
conception of the infinite and eternal, we must rise 
into an order of things of which not extension 
but thought is the differential attribute. Descartes 
divides the universe into two distinct parts, that 
of which extension is the differential attribute and 
that of which the differential is thought, and de- 
clares that between these two there is no com- 
munity of nature whatever. Infinite extension is 
inconceivable, infinite thought and infinite wisdom 
are at least thinkable. 

There is a prevalent tendency in the thought of 
to-day to conceive of the universe as essentially 
material. Very often, when the psychical is ad- 
mitted, it is assumed in some way to be the ulti- 
mate product of a process of physical evolution : 
the world of matter comes first; the spiritual is 
developed from it. Or, as we have seen, it is held 
that, as there is manifest in the physical world an 
orderly development, so there is also a spiritual 
evolution going along, pari passti therewith ; as 
there is an advancing movement toward the more 
perfect in this finite material world, so must we 
s 113 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

believe in another finite, spiritual universe going 
on in development. 

We have traced the process of evolution which 
science has discovered through all the material 
world in time and space. It starts with the crea- 
tion of the atom and the initial impulse of all 
physical energy. The next phase of evolution is 
the primary division into mass and ether. The 
mass arises out of the ether, and henceforth all 
the progress of evolution is manifest in the mass. 
Mass does not occupy all space, ether is the uni- 
versal fluid. Mass is set in motion, and through 
millions of ages this motion results in the evolu- 
tion of innumerable larger or smaller aggregates. 
These aggregates are subdivided into systems of 
rotating bodies — suns and attendant planets. 
These bodies — at first spheres of incandescent 
gas — cool and solidify. During this process of 
advancing change gravitation, cohesion, chemical 
action, heat, light, and electricity are the forces in 
operation. We have traced the origin of these 
forms of energy back beyond the physical process 
into a higher world-order. 

At length, by the operation of these forces, 
under favoring conditions of environment, a collo- 
cation of molecules becomes a chemical compound 
114 



EVOLUTION 

resulting in a primitive unicellular organism, in 
which vital phenomena are manifested and also 
the phenomena of intelligence. This progress 
advances through the continued development of 
the physical organism. The unicellular organisms 
develop into the multicellular organisms, each 
group of cells manifesting a peculiar quality of 
intelligence. The higher manifestations of life and 
intelligence are concomitant and correlated with 
a greater and greater complexity of organization 
and constitution of matter. The so-called natural 
forces are continually bringing forth and improving 
organisms. 

The primordial germ from which all organisms 
of life and intelligence are evolved is a certain 
definite quantity of protoplasm or matter of life. 
This protoplasm is a chemical compound of a cer- 
tain definite character. Its constitution is the same, 
whether dead or alive, as far as chemical analysis 
can as yet determine ; nor can the highest power of 
the microscope distinguish between dead and living 
protoplasm. In the multicellular organisms we 
have many groups of these primordial cells, per- 
forming various functions, manifesting life and 
intelligence. The specializing of these various 
groups and the division of labor among them mark 
115 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

the development of the living organisms ; and 
the higher organisms show greater complexity of 
structure and chemical constitution. This is all 
that physical science can positively assert. Sci- 
ence, as such, has nothing to do with inferences 
from the facts it discovers. 

A physiologist is intently studying the human 
brain. Suppose him to be endowed with abso- 
lutely perfect senses, which he has cultivated so 
that every change of whatever sort taking place in 
the brain-substance may be clearly perceived by 
him. What would his careful investigation reveal 
to him ? Obviously nothing but molecular changes 
— physical and chemical. To the outside observer 
there is absolutely nothing else to be seen. The 
brain, engaged in some sublime speculation, or 
taking its part in carrying into effect some man- 
date of the will, can reveal to the outside observer 
nothing but these molecular changes and move- 
ments. Every act of the mind, itself beyond our 
power of investigation, is accompanied by a series 
of physical phenomena complete in itself. These 
concomitant physical phenomena consist of certain 
vibrations of brain molecules, certain oxidations, 
with formation of carbonic acid, water, and urea. 
This physical process is all that we are capable of 
ii6 



EVOLUTION 

scientifically investigating; indeed, it is the whole 
of evolution. There is nowhere any evidence of 
any other development. Organic evolution is ca- 
pable of accounting for all the progress of life. 
Those scientists who would derive all the phenom- 
ena of mind by evolution from lower psychical 
activities, can, as we have seen, furnish no evidence 
whatever of any such process of development. 

If we pause here and reflect that evolution gives 
us a complete account of the whole physical process 
from the origin of the atom to the highest product 
of its ongoing — the brain of man, — if we con- 
template the course of development through all its 
marvellous phases, we observe a mighty process 
without one break or interruption in its orderly 
movement toward the goal of its predestined 
purpose. 

We have given an account of the method by 
which Professor Haeckel, out of the abundance 
of his knowledge of the phenomena of life, traces 
accurately the development of the living organism 
from the primordial germ up to man. All that he 
has given us as the facts of science we accept as 
such. These facts are the results of most pains- 
taking and skilful observation and experiment. It 
is the part of ignorant folly to question them at 
117 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

this day. All this evolution has gone on toward 
its supreme result, the perfect human organism. 
Then, too, this same eminent authority gives an 
account of the ontogenetic growth of the individual 
from the copulation of the male and female cells — 
the spermatozoon and the ovum — to the perfec- 
tion of the animal organism, showing, as he himself 
claims, the whole course of the individual from its 
absolute beginning to its ultimate ending in utter 
extinction. But Professor Haeckel asserts that 
the physical phenomena which he is able to 
investigate are not the whole story of the phylo- 
genetic and ontogenetic development of man. 
Besides those facts of science which we must 
accept, he dogmatically declares that all the 
higher psychical phenomena are but products or 
properties of matter. The soul, to which he denies 
any concrete or actual existence, but which he con- 
siders " merely a collective idea of all the psychic 
functions of protoplasm," he calls also a " physio- 
logical abstraction." To that part of the protoplasm 
which he regards as the "indispensable substratum 
of psychic life " he arbitrarily gives the name 
" psychoplasm." Of course, he does not point out 
that all the physical and physiological activities 
are accounted for by the expenditure of energy in 
Ii8 



EVOLUTION 

their production, which fact we are able to inves- 
tigate ; nor does he state that in every series of 
physical phenomena concomitant with a series of 
psychical phenomena, there is nowhere discovered 
any loss of energy that might be accounted for as 
having been used in bringing about the correlated 
psychical phenomena. Yet, he declares that what 
we commonly call the soul is only the activity of 
a certain portion of the protoplasm called psycho- 
plasm. This is an altogether gratuitous assump- 
tion, not so much as suggested by the results of 
observation. While we concede that " in all cases, 
in the lowest as well as in the highest stages of the 
psychological hierarchy, a certain chemical com- 
position and a certain physical activity of the 
psychoplasm are indispensable before the soul can 
function or act at all in the physical process," we 
see no reason to believe that the soul's functions 
or acts are the effects of physical causes — in fact, 
such a thing is inconceivable. 

Let me state the conclusions of an evolution- 
ist as he reviews all that has been established 
by the distinguished investigators whose work has 
added resplendent lustre to the reputation for 
advance in knowledge made during the nineteenth 
century. 

119 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

" Life appears to have been a necessary and inevitable 
result of inorganic or cosmic evolution. It came into 
being on our planet in the most natural way as soon as 
the temperature of the originally superheated planetary 
mass became sufficiently lowered, and the gaseous 
matter had been condensed into a universal sea. It 
arose by the action of physico-chemical laws through 
what we call spontaneous generation, the materials for 
the formation of the first bit of livi7ig protoplasm being 
ready at hand. When once formed, motion, change, and 
the action of the primary factors exerted through a great 
length of time resulted in the differentiation or diverg- 
ence of characters ; and specialization went on, condi- 
tioned by and dependent on the increasing changes in the 
internal structure and physical geography of the globe. 

" Variation was most probably neither fortuitous nor by 
chance, but was due to changes in the environment, 
and therefore was in direct relation with such changes, 
resultmg in the wonderful adaptation, variety, beauty, 
and harmony reigning through the organic world. 

" Putting together all the facts of geology and biology 
observed during the past century, a few of the more 
observant and thoughtful naturalists have, by the induc- 
tive method, to some extent worked out the mechanism 
of evolution. . . . Still we know only in part the guiding, 
controlling cause. There seems to be something more 
than the action of the physical factors and natural 
selection, which we cannot fathom." ^ 

(The italics are ours.) It is impossible to sup- 
press the question as to what is that mysterious 
1 See article on Evolution, " International Encyclopaedia." 
120 



EVOLUTION 

" something more than the action of physical 
factors," whose agency we must allow, the nature 
of which we cannot fathom. Though the " more 
thoughtful naturalists " have indeed " worked out 
the mechanism of evolution," have traced the 
steps of the phylogenetic and the ontogenetic 
development of the human race and the individual 
man, there yet stand the unsolved riddles of the 
origin of motion, of life, of intelligence, of con- 
sciousness. The most intimate and minute knowl- 
edge of all the physical process does not bring us 
one step nearer the solution of these inscrutable 
mysteries of nature. The writer above quoted 
can speak only doubtfully of the origin of the 
organic out of the inorganic. It appears inevitable 
that it should be so, but how the inevitable is 
realized he cannot presume to say. Life " came 
into being in a most natural way." If a natural 
product manifesting itself in a " most natural way," 
it should be most easily accounted for. It could 
not present any difficulty if it came naturally into 
the world. When the physical environment was 
prepared for the advent of a physical organism, 
then " by the action of physico-chemical laws, 
through what we call spontaneous generation," life 
appears in the " first bit of living protoplasm ready 

121 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

at hand." Of course this begs the question, for 
it is living protoplasm in the first instance we 
are trying to account for. To talk of the action 
of physico-chemical laws as producing life is a 
strange misuse of terms. How can a law act? A 
law is a rule of action and cannot be the act itself. 
An action in accordance with physico-chemical 
laws would be an exertion of physical energy, 
and, as we have said just now, should not present 
much difficulty of solution. But it is here admitted 
that there is something besides physical force in 
the process of evolution. On the hypothesis of 
an infinite, eternal, infinitely energetic, psychical 
universe, of which the physical world or process is 
the phenomenal representation, we readily discover 
the key that unlocks all these mysteries, which 
have grown darker and darker as the light of the 
science of the physical process has become 
brighter and brighter. 



122 



CHAPTER IV 

THE COSMOS 

The Dependence of Physical Phenomena on Psychical 
Activities — The Spiritual Universe regarded as the 
Objective to God — The Doctrine of Divine Imma- 
nence in the World — Pantheism — Relation of the 
Spiritual Universe to the World of Sense — Not 
Mental Evolution, but Progressive Manifestation of 
Mind Power — Instinct and Reason — The Law of 
the Conservation of Mass, and the Law of the Con- 
servation of Energy — Haeckel's Defence of His 
Monistic Theory — The Absolute Reality a Necessary 
Postulate — Sir Oliver Lodge's View of Life — The 
Phenomena of Genius due to Physical Conditions. 



We cannot think of any of the facts of external nature, without 
presupposing the existence of a mind which thinks them ; and 
therefore, so far at least as we are concerned, mind is prior to 
everything else. It is for us the only mode of existence which is 
real in its own right ; and to it, as to a standard, all other modes 
of existence which may be inferred must be referred. Therefore, 
if we say that mind is a function of motion, we are only saying in 
a somewhat confused terminology, that mind is a function of 
itself. — G. J. Romanes. 

If spiritualism be unsatisfactory and materialism impossible, 
is there yet any third hypothesis in which we may hope to find 
intellectual rest? In my opinion there is. If we unite in a 
higher synthesis the elements both of spiritualism and of material- 
ism, we obtain a product which satisfies every fact of feeling on 
the one hand, and of observation on the other. The manner in 
which this synthesis may be effected is perfectly simple. We 
have only to suppose that the seeming duality is relative to our 
modes of apprehension ; and therefore that any change taking 
place in the mind and any corresponding change taking place in 
the brain are not really two changes but one change. . . . We 
may suppose that a vibration of nerve strings and a process of 
thought are really one and the same event, which is dual or 
diverse only in our modes of perceiving it. The great advantage 
of this theory is, that it supposes only one stream of causation, 
in which mind and motion are simultaneously concerned. This 
theory, therefore, escapes all the difficulties and contradictions 
with which both spiritualism and materialism are beset. — G. J. 
Romanes. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE COSMOS 

WE come now to the statement of our 
hypothesis. Science compels us " to 
refer to the spiritual world the marvel- 
lously complex forces which we know as gravita- 
tion, cohesion, chemical force, and electricity, 
without which the material universe could not 
exist for a moment in its present form, and per- 
haps not at all, since without these forces and 
others which may be termed atomic it is doubtful 
whether matter itself could have any existence." ^ 
Unless we declare that this material world-process 
is all of the universe, or that it came from nothing 
and into nothing returns, we are compelled to 
accept as the postulate of science that there exists 
another world-order or universe, or many such, 
evolved one from another from all eternity. 

We postulate a purely psychical universe, the 
differential attribute of which is thought. We 

1 Alfred R. Wallace. 
125 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

further conceive of this spiritual universe as infi- 
nite, eternal, infinitely energetic, and perfect 

Being driven by the deductions of science above 
stated to assume the existence of a higher world- 
order as the source of the material and energy of 
the present physical process, we deem it more 
philosophical to conceive this higher world or 
universe to exist from everlasting to everlasting, 
than to regard it as an infinite succession of world 
processes. 

This higher and eternal universe " does not con- 
sist of ethers, gases, or ghosts, but of purely 
psychical relations akin to such as constitute 
thoughts and feelings when our minds are least 
solicited by sense perceptions." ^ In thus marking 
off the unseen universe from the material world of 
which we have knowledge, " our line of demarca- 
tion would at least be drawn in the right place." 
The distinction we draw between physical and 
psychical phenomena immeasurably transcends all 
others. No possible experimental skill or logical 
deduction can determine the weight or measure of 
thought, nor in any way can the things of the 
spiritual world be made like the actual ox possible 
objects of sense-perception. 

1 Fiske, " Unseen World," p. 40. 
126 



THE COSMOS 

" Notwithstanding the positive assertions of Haeckel 
and other materialists, modern discovery has tended to 
make the distinction between mind and matter absolute, 
and an unseen world consisting of purely psychical or 
spiritual phenomena would be marked off from what we 
call the physical world by the boundary line of absolute 
dissimilarity in nature and constitution, and yet, not 
necessarily dissociated from those psychical phenomena 
which we now find manifested in connection with the 
world of matter." 

Those phenomena, which in our present experi- 
ence we designate as psychical because manifested 
apart from material conditions, are not the only 
spiritual phenomena of the present world-order. 
Every effort of force, in its origin, must be a 
psychic fact, and the so-called physical phenomena 
but the manifestations, under certain material con- 
ditions, of psychical activities. You can no more 
investigate force apart from the material manifes- 
tation of its activity, than you can thought or 
feeling, by any of the methods by which physical 
phenomena are investigated. 

It is, indeed, true that, " when we survey the net 
results of our experience up to the present time, 
we find evidence that cannot be disputed that 
what are commonly called psychic phenomena in 
the physical world have begun to be manifested 
127 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

only in connection with certain complex aggregates 
of matter. As these material aggregates have age 
by age become more complex in structure, more 
complex psychical phenomena have been exhib- 
ited." We can readily agree with Mr. Fiske in 
the above statements, but it is not certain that 
those phenomena which we regard as psychi- 
cal are the only phenomena of spiritual signifi- 
cance. It may be that every physical phenomenon 
is of psychic origin. To this supposition we are 
inclined to give assent. We have traced several 
series of cause and effect back to this higher 
world-order.^ Two of the series traced in the first 
chapter led us through the activities of the human 
body and brain back to the same inscrutable terms 
in the psychical world. In the perception of an 
external object, we traced the process through a 
concatenation of physical activities, and at last 
reached the act of mental perception, whereby we 
are made conscious of the presence of a visible 
object; an act which cannot be scientifically re- 
garded as the result of the last activity in the phy- 
sical series, though concomitant with it. In the 
case of a series originating with the will we meet 
with the same break in the concatenation. I thrust 

1 Chapter I. 
128 



THE COSMOS 

forth my hand to strike an object. That act is due 
to a series of activities which we trace back to the 
initiative in the will, an act which is outside 
the physical world. 

There seems to be no other conceivable char- 
acter to be ascribed to this higher world-order 
than that of the psychical. To regard the unseen 
world as a larger, more attenuated, more energetic 
physical universe, would not be logical ; for if of 
the same order with the present physical process, 
there would not be this inevitable break which we 
meet with in every long series of cause and effect, 
when we reach the limit of the physical world. 

Scientific evidence of the character of such a 
universe we cannot produce, except in the nature 
of necessary inference, for, as we have seen, the 
suggestion of this higher sphere of existence is 
derived from the fact that at a certain point in our 
investigations we reach the limit of sensible phe- 
nomena, and are yet assured that there is some- 
thing beyond. Either there is a world of energy 
from which the present world emanates and by 
which it is supported and sustained, or else we 
must admit that from nothing something comes. 

On the other hand, the fact that no evidence can 
be adduced in this instance — that is, evidence of 
9 129 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

a scientific character — does not count against the 
hypothesis of a spiritual world, but rather in its 
favor. For our supposition is that such universe 
transcends our present experience, and therefore, 
conditioned as we are by the limitations of sense 
perception, we could have no experience of its 
phenomena. 

" Since our ability to conceive of anything is limited 
by the extent of our experience, and since human ex- 
perience is very far from being infinite, it follows that 
there may be, and in all probability is, an immense 
region of existence in every way as real as the region 
which we know, yet concerning which we cannot form 
the faintest rudiment of a conception. An hypothesis 
relating to such a region of existence is not only not dis- 
proved by a total failure of scientific evidence in its 
favor, but the total failure of such evidence does not 
raise the slightest presumption against its validity." ^ 

This hypothesis cannot be regarded as irrational, 
but may be logically entertained without violating 
our scientific habit of thought or invalidating our 
scientific conclusions. 

We have argued throughout the preceding 
pages that the power manifest in physical phenom- 
ena is not physical in origin, but similar to the 
mental part of ourselves, and also independent of 

1 Fiske, " Unseen World," p. 48. 
130 



THE COSMOS 

our consciousness. We do not contend that this 
power is God, as do all theistic writers, but the 
energy of an infinite, eternal, and infinitely ener- 
getic psychical universe. This Spiritual Universe 
has existed from everlasting as the infinite objec- 
tive to God. God cannot stand as the sole and 
absolute term in the realm of uncreated being. 
From everlasting there must exist somewhat 
objective to Him. Absolute subject there is not 
and cannot be. The absolute subject is a contra- 
diction in thought no less than a " single-termed 
equation or an uncaused effect." A subject im- 
plies and requires an object, and all existence in 
this respect must be relative. The very concep- 
tion of subject, or of any subjective activity what- 
ever, involves the conception of something other 
than subject as engaging its activities. With all 
being there must be a sphere of being. The 
innumerable temporal phases and phenomena of 
existence pass away, and there must remain an 
eternal, infinite universe, coeval with the Eternal 
Mind and inseparable from it, — a field of possible 
experience, supplying the requisites indispensable 
for any form of thought or spiritual activity. 

In Christian thought this physical world has 
always been regarded as temporal in duration as 
131 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

well as finite in extent. We have shown in pre- 
ceding pages that recognized authorities in every 
department of science also declare that this present 
finite world came into being in time, and will in 
time pass away.^ Because of the finite and tem- 
poral limitations of the material world the Chris- 
tian philosopher has been unwilling to regard 
matter as the objective to God. In theology the 
physical world has ever been thought of as sinful 
and imperfect, and hence it would be sacrilegious 
to conceive of Deity as immanent in such a world. 
Evil could not find place in an order of things in 
which God dwelt. So God has been put outside 
His creation — a Deus ex machina. Having 
framed the world and set it going. He took up His 
abode in some remote part of unoccupied space, 
where He has been a somewhat interested specta- 
tor of its ongoing, content from time to time to 
pay it a visit to repair some of its fractures and to 
supply some of its inevitable deficiencies. " An 
absentee God," as Carlyle remarks, " sitting idle 
ever since the first Sabbath, at the outside of His 
universe, and seeing it go." 

The doctrine of the Divine Immanence, taught 
in the Christian Scriptures and by the early Greek 

1 Chapter I. 
132 



THE COSMOS 

fathers of the Church, then lost sight of by the 
Latin theologians, is gaining wide acceptance in 
the thought of to-day. What this Divine Imma- 
nence in a temporal and evolving world might be, 
no one has ventured to declare. How God could 
be present for millions of years in the incandescent 
globe of gas rolling through all space, and through 
untold ages watch and energize in the womb of 
nature, bringing forth the ever-advancing forms of 
life until at length a being was developed that 
aspired to kinship and communion with its God, 
we are not told. If this developing world be 
regarded as the objective to God and the only 
environment upon which He could act and realize 
His purposes, then there were ages in which 
this objective was more than during other ages. 
Periods there were, during its primal state, when 
it gave the faintest utterance to His will and pur- 
poses. If we should admit the eternity of matter, 
or the stuff of the material world, lying inert and 
lifeless throughout all space until at length the 
mighty movement began which has gone on 
through all the developing ages, then doubtless 
through an eternity of the past this formless void 
was the only objective to God. 

Pantheism admits of nothing objective to God. 
133 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

In this system of belief God is all and all is God, 
and certainly the «// can have nothing outside of 
or apart from itself. In His causal relation God is 
then the inner side of nature, and for Him there 
is no beyond on which any transitive action can 
pass, no way out of Himself to deal with what is 
the otJier, " but only an eternal weaving of the 
tissue of phenomena from some focus within 
toward some circumference that is not without." 
Pantheism "by making the consciousness of God 
identical with that of all sentient beings, has pred- 
icated of God every error and weakness belong- 
ing to His creatures, and made Him not alone the 
cause but also the subject of all the sin, sorrow, 
and suffering of the world." 

By the hypothesis which it is the purpose of 
this book to present and establish, God is not 
excluded from, nor yet included within, the 
material world. The spiritual universe, which we 
regard as infinite, eternal, and infinitely energetic, 
in which God dwells, upon which and through 
which He acts, gives perfect expression to His 
will, and unfailing and unvarying fulfilment of His 
wise and holy purposes. 

The relation of this spiritual universe to the 
present world of sense may be imperfectly 
134 



THE COSMOS 

represented by that of a cloud to the atmosphere 
on which it rests, out of which it comes, and into 
which it vanishes. The cloud does not manifest 
all the energy of the physical world, nor can one 
learn all the laws of matter from an exhaustive 
study of this mass of vapor. So this present 
physical world does not and cannot manifest all 
the infinite forms of psychical energy. Only a 
few of these forms, and they only as they so act 
and react as to become capable of being appre- 
hended by the bodily senses, constitute and 
compose the material world-order. All physical 
energy, every exertion of force, every sensible 
activity, every phenomenon in this present world- 
order, is derived from, or originates in, the spirit- 
ual world. The atom, the ultimate unit of matter, 
is a manifestation of certain psychical forces — 
forces originating beyond the region of our 
scientific knowledge. 

Accepting the theory of the vortex-atom, it is 
conceivable that such atom is a motion of a certain 
kind capable of manifesting physical properties. 
This motion is due to energy of another order. 
The ether has been regarded as a " universal fluid 
full of, or rather composed of, vortex-motion, these 
vortices being smaller and more closely packed 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

than in ordinary matter." So, the difference 
between (gross) matter and ether is reduced to a 
mere difference in the size and arrangement of the 
component vortex rings. Molecules are combina- 
tions of vortex-atoms or motions manifesting 
under new forms and varying properties energy 
from the unseen. As matter advances in com- 
position, constitution, and organization, it affords 
loci for the manifestation of ever higher and higher 
forms of psychical energy or power. Through- 
out the physical world, during its primordial 
period, the forces of the mineral kingdom could 
alone manifest themselves. Gravitation, cohesion, 
chemical affinity, heat, light, and electricity were 
the forms of energy then operative, and all these 
we have hereinbefore shown to be traceable back 
into the unseen universe. These names by which 
we designate the forms of physical energy are 
really applied solely to the sensible manifestations 
of force, force itself being beyond our power to 
investigate or designate. 

Mr. Wallace, as we have already seen, indicates 
three great crises in the evolution of the world, at 
each of which a new form of energy must have 
entered the physical process from the unseen. 
The first of these was the advent of life. By our 
136 



THE COSMOS 

hypothesis no invasion of the physical order is de- 
manded. Every particle of matter in the material 
world is embraced and interpenetrated by the infi- 
nitely energetic unseen universe. Like an exhaust- 
less, mighty stream this tide of psychic energy 
sweeps through matter, touching every atom, and 
seeking points of manifestation in physical activities. 
Whenever and wherever matter presents a suffi- 
ciently complex organization, and affords thus a 
locus, then and there the manifestation of life 
occurs in the primordial germ. Every advance 
in the evolution of life in the world is to be 
accounted for simply by the increase of complexity 
in the organism. Every slightest variation in the 
organ is seized upon and becomes a locus for a 
peculiar manifestation of life. So comes forth 
species after species, and so the myriad forms of 
living things appear in ever higher and higher 
organization. 

With the appearance of animal existence we find 
psychic forces clearly in evidence. The elemental 
cell called the monero7i, being just an unorganized 
jelly without a nucleus, manifests intelligence in 
self-preservation and reproduction. The supposi- 
tion that a definite quantity of divine intelligence 
has been, as it were, farmed out or deposited with 

m 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

this infinitesimal and unorganized cell borders on 
the absurd. Yet this is the generally accepted 
view, except among the materialists, who regard 
the manifested intelligence as due to material 
organization. How much more reasonable to 
suppose that the ever-present psychical energy of 
the spiritual universe, finding matter sufficiently 
organized to afford a locus for its activity, immedi- 
ately manifests itself. 

Professor Huxley says : " I know nothing, in the 
name of biology, and never hope to know anything, 
of the steps by which the passage from molecular 
movement to states of consciousness is eff"ected." 
And Professor CHff"ord adds : " The two things are 
on two utterly different platforms ; the physical 
facts go along by themselves, and the psychical 
facts go along by themselves." But we have shown 
that there is some sort of causal relation between 
psychical force and physical fact. What we call 
mental evolution and development is but the con- 
stant and progressive vtanifestation of ever higher 
and higher forms of psychic energy. The increas- 
ing glory and splendor of the physical process, as 
it advances toward the " one far-off" divine event 
to which the whole creation moves," is a trans- 
figuration of the material world, whereby it is 
138 



THE COSMOS 

irradiate with that " light which is not on sea or 
land," but comes streaming in with dazzling 
brightness from the universe unseen. 

The third crisis in the evolution of life on our 
globe, which Mr. Wallace declares marks the 
beginning of a new order of beings in the physi- 
cal world, is the advent of man. " A wonderful 
moment," as Mr. Fiske describes it, " silent and 
unnoticed even as the day of the Lord, which 
Cometh as a thief in the night." Here are the 
beginnings of self-conscious personality. Intelli- 
gence dawned with animal life, as we have seen, 
long before a brain existed, and has gone on man- 
ifesting ever more marvellous powers. This prog- 
ress and development on its physical side has 
been the increasing complexity of organization. 
The appearance and the development of brain, not 
in size only, but in delicacy of organization, marked 
an epoch in the so-called evolution of higher intel- 
ligence. Those peculiar manifestations of reason 
and intelligence which are characteristic of particu- 
lar species we term " instinct." We marvel at the 
intelligence exhibited by lower animals, approach- 
ing very near, if not altogether reaching, human 
reason, and we see in man — especially in man in 
his primitive state — the survival of many so-called 
139 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

instincts. There seems to us no ground for insist- 
ing upon any real distinction between instinct and 
reason. The only distinction we might be willing 
to draw would be between instinct as the charac- 
teristic of a species, and reason as a quality of the 
individual mind. The inerrancy of instinct might 
be contrasted with the fallibility of reason. Again, 
instinct is not acquired, nor is it capable of educa- 
tion. Generations after generations of bees, birds, 
and animals of every species live over the same 
routine of instinctive existence, exhibiting no indi- 
vidual excellencies or deficiencies. Through gen- 
erations the birds of any particular species build 
their nests on the same plan, never devising a 
single new or advantageous improvement. The 
instincts that are essential to the preservation of 
life and reproduction of kind are almost inerrant. 
The homing instinct in pigeons, in many other 
animals, and some primitive races of men never 
fails, where the developed human reason would be 
an erring guide. 

Upon our theory, the origin of instinct, its per- 
manency, its inerrancy, are all easily accounted 
for. Every progressive variation in the organ of 
intelligence, no matter how infinitesimal it may be, 
affords a locus for the manifestation of another 
140 



THE COSMOS 

and higher form of psychical energy. In any 
species the brain morphology in general is identical 
in every individual. So every individual of any 
species will exhibit the same degree and quality 
of instinctive intelligence. In the lower animals 
there is no such thing as personality ; hence no 
self-consciousness. The habitual acts of the indi- 
vidual are common to all members of the species. 
It is the same stream of psychical energy that 
sweeps through the whole species, waking into 
activity each responsive chord of being. Individ- 
ual characteristics are accounted for by pecul- 
iarities of brain complexity and conformation. 
Physically the lower orders of animal life exhibit 
individuality, but psychically there is no such thing 
as personality with them. The transitional forms 
that stand midway between species are not to be 
accounted for by some new form of energy from 
the unseen entering and taking up its abode in 
these particular and peculiar individuals, and there- 
after handed down to and through posterity forever, 
thus securing the perpetuity of a new species; but 
rather by some subtle change in the complexity 
of organization, some variation in physical or 
chemical composition of the organism, seized 
upon and quickened by a higher form of spiritual 
141 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

energy. Infinite are the forms of psychical energy 
in the unseen universe, and the innumerable 
possible changes in the physical organism are 
immediately met by their corresponding spiritual 
forces. 

We know of but two possible modes of 
existence : that of which the differential attribute 
is extension, embracing all the material world and 
its every form of being, and that of which the 
differential is thought, which cannot be cognized 
by the senses and cannot be scientifically investi- 
gated. If, then, we are to look for the origin of 
all those forces whose activities are manifested in 
the phenomena of the material world outside the 
physical process, the world of extension, it must 
be found in that universe the differential attribute 
of which is thought. 

We are led directly to a psychical world-order 
every form of whose energy is psychical and hence 
intelligent. The only valid hypothesis concerning 
that universe is that it is infinite, eternal, and infi- 
nitely energetic. It is not a process nor a finite 
mode of existence, but the COSMOS, the whole 
universe objective to God. The material world is 
a phase of the eternal, infinite energizing, a process 
of evolution and development. It may be eternal, 

142 



THE COSMOS 

it cannot be infinite. It is the phenomenal mani- 
festation of certain, we might term lower, forms of 
energy of the infinite, eternal, and infinitely ener- 
getic psychical universe. As the material world- 
order derives its energy from an eternal and 
infinite source, it may, as we have said, be eternal. 
It is not inconceivable that this process has been 
from everlasting and will be to everlasting. The 
law of the indestructibility of matter, and that of 
the conservation of energy are not in any respect 
invaHdated by this hypothesis of a ^finite material 
process as the phenomenal manifestation of uni- 
versal energizing. If every phenomenon is a 
manifestation of infinite energy determined by 
material conditions, then would there never be 
any failure of energy in the physical process. 
And if there were no such thing as transforma- 
tion of energy, yet, in efi"ect, the phenomena would 
be the same as if there were. 

The New Knowledge, the development of which 
is to be the glory of the twentieth century, 
impugns the absolute truth of the law of the con- 
servation of mass. The study of radioactivity 
tends to revolutionize our idea of mass. The atom 
is now held to be made up of a congeries of cor- 
puscles or moving units of negative electricity 

143 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

balanced by a sphere of positive electricity. There 
is no mass in the atom. According to this theory, 
the mass of a corpuscle is not material, but due to 
its velocity. Hence the mass of the radium atom 
before its explosive rearrangement would not be 
the same as the mass of the products of its disin- 
tegration, for the velocities of its corpuscles have 
changed. However, accepting the hypothesis we 
are maintaining in this treatise, the apparent truth 
of the law of the conservation of mass is explained. 
The atom of the new knowledge is not held to ac- 
count for the tremendous force which propels the 
corpuscles of negative electricity, nor that mightier 
power by which this repulsive force is held in the 
grasp of the sphere of positive electricity. What 
really appears to be established is that the atom is 
a marvellous structure, contrivance, or mechanism, 
by which certain forms of cosmic or psychical 
energy can manifest themselves on the plane of 
our sensible experience within the physical process. 
And as the quantity of energy manifested in any 
transformation is always dependent upon physical 
conditions and material arrangement, the law of 
the conservation of energy may also be only 
apparently true, so much and such forms of 
cosmic or psychical energy being manifested as 
144 



THE COSMOS 

the physical conditions make possible. We have 
suggested above the possibility that there is no 
such thing as transformation of energy other than 
a change of the physical conditions of energetic 
manifestation. A supposed transformation of heat 
into light may be only such a change of physical 
conditions as will permit the appearance of an- 
other form of psychical energy. It is not a 
transformation, but the appearance of a distinct 
form of energy under its own peculiar physical 
conditions. 

There was a time in the history of the earth, 
as we have seen, when only the physical forces 
were manifested. At length the intensity of the 
heat having decreased, chemical affinity asserted 
itself under favorable physical conditions, a new 
form of energy with new and peculiar phenomena. 
Ages upon ages passed, and in the fulness of time, 
when material conditions were favorable, and an 
organism had been brought forth of sufficiently 
complex constitution, life appeared, producing 
a still more specialized group of phenomena. 
Through the advancing ages this life-force mani- 
fested itself in phenomena of a higher and higher 
order until finally, when the conditions were 
fully ripe, there appeared the self-conscious, 
lo 145 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

self-determining, rational, and moral spirit of man, 
a new and still higher form of energy. 

Such a theistic exponent of evolution as Pro- 
fessor Le Conte, outlining this development, tells 
us that at each stage of this progress a new form 
of force appeared, but derived, in each instance, 
from that form of force operative on the plane 
below. So this evolutionist believed that the 
self-conscious, self-determining spirit of man was 
derived by a physical process, or a process within 
the physical world-order, from the lowest form of 
energy manifest in physical phenomena. Such a 
claim of spiritual descent or psychical development 
we have shown to be without foundation in the 
facts of physical science, to be unphilosophical and 
irrational. Other evolutionists, represented by Mr. 
Alfred Russell Wallace, refer these new forms of 
energy, as they appear in the progress of develop- 
ment, to the unseen spiritual universe, coming 
into the physical process at certain times, and 
thereafter developing onward and upward. Still 
another class of evolutionists, of whom we may re- 
gard Professor Haeckel as a representative, declare 
that the human soul is derived from the elemental 
intelligence manifested by the primordial germ — 
the unorganized moneron — this intelligence in 

146 



THE COSMOS 

the first instance being a direct product or an 
essential property of matter. All these, then, 
differ widely as to the origin and method of de- 
velopment of the human spirit. They, however, 
agree in holding that there are distinct stages of 
development. All accept as facts of science the 
evidences of the development of the physical 
organ of mind in complexity of constitution and 
structure. All agree that there are several well 
marked epochs in the progress of organic evolu- 
tion, when certain groups of phenomena are first 
manifested. In all these theories intelligence is 
held to exist in each intelligent being from the 
amoeba to man, as an entity. Haeckel speaks of 
the cell soul, and all evolutionists regard the 
'' nascent soul " as passing through a process of 
embryonic development in the womb of nature, 
its " gestative mother." Whether each soul is 
developed in this descent as an entity, or one 
great soul is coming to birth to be individuated at 
last in each separate man, is not clearly stated, if 
clearly conceived. It is conceded that the higher 
intelligence is correlated with the more fully 
developed physical organ, the brain. How does 
this happen? Either some intelhgent ruler of the 
universe, author and superintendent of the process 
147 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

of evolution, must introduce these more intelligent 
souls to the more highly developed organs ; or 
each soul, in its developing course, must pass from 
progenitor to offspring with or in the spermatozoon 
and ovum out of which the physical organism is 
developed, or again the soul in each individual is 
the immediate product of the brain itself. Each 
of these suppositions presents insuperable diffi- 
culties, and all appear puerile and impracticable. 
These difficulties vanish when we assume that all 
the phenomena of the physical process are but 
manifestations of the energy of the infinite, eternal, 
and infinitely energetic psychical universe, depen- 
dent upon material and organic conditions. There 
remains, upon this supposition, no question about 
the origin of motion, of matter, of physical or 
chemical phenomena, of vegetable or animal life, 
nor all the psychical phenomena of the soul-life of 
man. All these are but the names we apply to 
certain manifestations of psychical energy within 
the physical process. 

Professor Haeckel in defence of his monistic 
theory of substance attempts, with no great meas- 
ure of success, to establish the unity of the two 
laws of the indestructibility of matter and the 
conservation or persistence of force. He admits 
148 



THE COSMOS 

that this unity is " much disputed." He offers 
little proof of the truth of his contention, but goes 
back to Spinoza and his " stately pantheistic " 
notion of the world. In the teachings of this 
great philosopher he sees exhibited two different 
aspects of the being of the Cosmos, or two funda- 
mental attributes, matter — extended substance — 
and spirit — the all-embracing energy of thought. 
This thought of Spinoza's, which Goethe regarded 
as the " loftiest, profoundest, and truest thought of 
all the ages," really finds no place or meaning in 
the philosophy of Haeckel, for the latter makes 
thought and all intelligence only a property of 
matter or substance. But Spinoza's thought is a 
grand foreshadowing of the theory herein pre- 
sented of an infinite, eternal, and infinitely ener- 
getic psychical universe, the differential attribute 
of which is thought. 

This is the purest and most rational monism. 
The psychical universe is the whole and entire 
Cosmos, a phase of whose activities is this material 
world-order, or physical process. Every single 
object in the world which comes within the sphere 
of our cognizance, all individual forms of existence, 
are but special, transitory forms, accidents or 
modes of the energy of the spiritual universe. 

149 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

" These modes are material things when we regard 
them under the attribute of extension, as occupy- 
ing space ; intelligent energy or * ideas ' when con- 
sidered under the attribute of thought." By our 
hypothesis we save the real objective existence of 
the material world, and also bring forth the Cos- 
mos as the eternal and infinite objective to God. 
We hold to no such meaningless fancy as that the 
material world has no existence outside the forms 
of our thought and consciousness. We do hold 
that the physical process is but the phenome- 
nal representation of certain forms of psychical 
energy, capable of being cognized by the self- 
conscious personality through the physical senses. 
We assert a pure monism, — that there is but one 
eternal, infinite universe, psychical in nature, the 
differential attribute of which is thought, out of 
which the physical process arose, upon which it 
rests, by which it is energetically sustained, and 
into which it ultimately will return. Or if it be 
contended that this physical process is of eternal 
duration, then must it eternally derive its being, 
substance, and energy from the eternal psychical 
universe. The material world cannot be regarded 
us a universe in itself and apart from the un- 
seen universe, or Cosmos. It is only a phase of 

150 



THE COSMOS 

universal being, and may be one of many such in 
a series of processes. 

The unity of nature, as established by modern 
science, is best explained upon the hypothesis of 
an infinite, eternal, and infinitely energetic psychi- 
cal universe, the energy of which always and 
everywhere manifests identical phenomena under 
identical physical conditions. By spectrum analy- 
sis we have found that the millions of worlds and 
suns that swarm in limitless space are all of the 
same material as our own earth and sun. Then, 
too, throughout the physical process the same 
forces produce the same results or effects in devel- 
oping nebulae, in burning suns, in solid earths, and 
decaying moons. The physical forces and those 
we term chemical obey the same laws in every 
part of the material world, nearest or most remote. 
There is not a particle of matter that can escape 
from the grasp of gravitation. This finite world- 
order embraced and sustained everywhere by the 
infinite spiritual Cosmos must perforce be uniform 
and present an unbroken unity. 

If we should admit the correctness of the theory 
of the decay and rebirth of cosmic bodies, we 
should in no way invahdate our conclusions, for, as 
we have before said, we may as reasonably admit 

151 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

the eternal as the temporal character of the 
physical process. Indeed, if there is an eternal 
energizing of the eternal unseen universe, it is 
quite reasonable to suppose that the manifestations 
of that energizing in the material world will go on 
forever. Recent science declares that not only 
are there now upbuilding in the depths of space 
worlds and systems of worlds, but suns are grow- 
ing dark and cold, and earths are hasting to decay. 
With prophetic vision science peers into the re- 
motest future, sees the planets gradually narrowing 
their orbits, until at last with awful plunge they 
must leap into the cooling bosom of the sun, by 
terrific impact either to generate afresh the tre- 
mendous heat that expands the burning mass back 
into the primordial nebula, to begin again the 
round of evolution and decay, or to roll up as a 
scroll, to lie inert and cold, a mighty ember in 
empty space. It matters not what the denouement 
may be, our hypothesis is equally valid and cer- 
tainly verified. The universe, the Cosmos, suffers 
neither loss nor gain whether this be the final 
catastrophe or the new birth of systems of worlds 
to undergo the changes through which our world 
is passing now. 

Thus do we see the relation existing between 
152 



THE COSMOS 

the Cosmos and the physical process as such. 
The Cosmos is unknowable so far, and only so 
far, as it is absolute with reference to ourselves, 
that is, so far as it exists out of relation with our 
intelligence. As manifested to our intelhgence, 
the Cosmos is the world of phenomena, which 
world is the realm of the knowable outside of 
consciousness. Underlying this realm of phe- 
nomena, we find ourselves compelled to postulate 
an Absolute Reality. Without such a postulate 
we conclude that it would be impossible to form 
any theory whatever, either of subjective or ob- 
jective phenomena. These phenomena, whether 
subjective or objective, are the products of per- 
sistent power, — a power to which no Hmit in time 
or space is conceivable, and which can be known 
to us only through these manifestations. 

If we venture to inquire what may be the na- 
ture of that inscrutable power manifested only 
through glimpses of the manifold phenomena of 
the knowable world, we shall find its '* ultimate 
essence " to be identifiable with the ultim.ate es- 
sence of what we know as mind. If we conceive 
units of force existing objectively as of essen- 
tially identical nature with those subjectively 
manifested as units of feeling, we have a possible 
153 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

rational hypothesis explaining the relation of mind 
and matter. 

We insist upon the necessity of a substratum or 
noumenon to support the phenomena of our 
experience. If nothing really exists but thought 
and its modifications, and feehng is the only unit 
and measure of reality, then this substratum or 
noumenon must be of the nature of mind. Mind, 
however, is the one sort of real existence of which 
we have immediate experience ; it is known in 
conscious feeling. This known kind of existence, 
then, will satisfy the conditions of the substratum, 
and we may, therefore, postulate that mode of 
existence of which the differential attribute is 
thought, as the noumenon of all objective and 
subjective phenomena. Thus we reach the unity 
and continuity of the Cosmos, which is infinite, 
eternal, infinitely energetic, and psychical, and is 
made manifest in all the phenomena of which we 
may be cognizant. A luminous passage from 
Kant's " Critique of Pure Reason " may well be 
studied in this connection : 

"Though extension, impenetrability, cohesion, and 
motion, in short, everything we obtain through the out- 
ward sense, cannot be or contain thought, feeling, or 
the like; which in no case can be the objects of outward 

154 



THE COSMOS 

perception ; yet the something which underhes the out- 
ward phenomena .and so affects our sense as to furnish 
it with the notions of space, matter, form, etc. this 
something, I say, considered as a noumenon, might well 
be the subject of thoughts, though we obtain from it 
through the outward sense no perception of ideas, will, 
or the like, but only of space and its modifications. 
This something, whatever it may be, has in itself none 
of the qualities of matter, such as extension, impenetra- 
bility, and the like ; for statements about these qualities 
are statements about our perceptions. Bui the qualities 
proper to the inner sense, namely, ideas and thought, may 
be ascribed to it without contradiction. ... I am free 
to assume that matter is in itself simple, and that the 
substance which to our outward sense is extended is in 
itself accompanied by thoughts capable of being repre- 
sented in consciousness by an inward sense of its own. 
In this way the same thing that in one aspect is called 
bodily, would in another be a thinking being, of which 
we could not perceive the thought, but could perceive 
the signs of it in the phenomenon. Then we should no 
longer say that our souls think, assuming soul to be a 
certain kind of substance ; we should say, with common 
speech, that men think, in other words, that the same 
thing which as an outward pheno77ienon is extended, is 
inwardly or in itself a subject, which is not composite, 
but which is simple and thinks." ^ 

Our contention is that the inner and the outer 
world are not really different and parallel, but one 
and the same world under two distinct attributes 
1 Translated by Sir Frederick Pollock. 

155 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

or aspects. In the language of Spinoza this 
Substance, or Thing in Itself, is God. He would 
say that God's reality is " constituted and expressed 
by his determinate manifestations." This is plain 
and lofty pantheism, from which it seems there is 
no escape except through some such hypothesis 
as that we have offered, of an infinite, eternal, in- 
finitely energetic, psychical universe. Here is 
the very essence of the universe, the infinite 
substance manifest under the two aspects of ex- 
tension and thought. This infinite universe, — 
the essential Cosmos, — though not a world im- 
mediately accessible to any particular order of 
finite beings or minds, includes every possible 
consequence of infinite being, in which there can 
exist no real distinction between the actual and 
the possible. 

In a former chapter we have traced the relation 
of the Cosmos to the phenomena of organic nature. 
What we call the phenomena of life we have seen 
to be the manifestation of certain forms of psychi- 
cal energy, acting under favorable physical condi- 
tions. In the vegetable and animal kingdoms, 
life, as we maintain, does not act in and through 
material organisms, but upon them. So far as we 
know, this form of psychical energy does not act 
156 



THE COSMOS 

at all in the sense in which the so-called physical 
forces, heat, light, electricity, etc., act Life, as 
manifested in phenomena of the living cell, seems 
to direct the activities of the lower forms of energy. 
For, as we have said before, all the vital processes 
are those of Physics and Chemistry. We do not 
know what the nerve activities are, but we do know 
that every activity in the plant or animal organism 
is dependent upon life. Life in the tree is nourished, 
as we say, by the sap that rises from the roots, 
and by the carbon released by the decomposition 
of carbonic acid by sunlight in the green leaves. 
The animal by a chemical process derives its 
nourishment from the food eaten or by any means 
brought into its digestive organs. Another chem- 
ical process is that of the oxidation of the blood. 
Thus we do not discover life in these vital activi- 
ties, and yet, unless life is present, none of these 
activities is possible. Lord Kelvin's latest utter- 
ance upon this subject is emphatically in favor of 
the existence of a principle of life — a vital power. 
This we maintain, that life is a form of psychical 
energy manifesting itself in the physical process 
whenever and wherever matter presents a certain 
degree of organization. Life does not manifest per- 
sonality nor any of the characteristics of individual 
157 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

being. Life is a mighty stream of energy, of the 
infinite, eternal, psychical universe, flowing through 
the material world, manifesting its presence and 
phenomena wherever physical conditions exist, 
making such manifestations possible. So we ac- 
count for the manifold forms of living things, from 
the primordial germ cell to man. My own physi- 
cal life is one with that of the lowest form of ani- 
mal being. I cannot detain a portion of it and call 
it my own. I live so long as my body remains in 
a condition of healthful activity to respond to the 
vital stream that pours ever through it. To quote 
Sir Oliver Lodge : 

" The view concerning life I have endeavored to ex- 
press is that it is neither matter nor energy, nor even a 
function of matter or of energy, but is something belong- 
ing to a different category ; that by some means at present 
unknown it is able to interact with the material world for 
a time, but that it can also exist in some sense independ- 
ently ; although in that condition of existence it is by no 
means apprehensible by our senses. It is dependent 
upon matter for its phenomenal appearance — for its 
manifestation to us here and now, and for its terrestrial 
activities ; but otherwise I conceive it is independent, 
that its essential existence is continuous and permanent, 
though its interactions with matter are discontinuous and 
temporary." ^ 

1 Sir Oliver Lodge, " Life and Matter," p. 119. 
158 



THE COSMOS 

This eminent physicist bears most valuable wit- 
ness to the truth of our theory that the boundaries 
of the present physical world are the limits of 
sensible knowledge. We can know life in and 
through the vital phenomena which are temporal ; 
we cannot know it in its independent existence, 
which is continuous and permanent. 

We have shown hereinbefore that we are able 
scientifically to investigate the physical side — the 
material conditions and organs — of all phenom- 
ena manifest within the physical process, whether 
physical, vital, or mental, from the phenomena of 
light to those of the most soaring intellectual 
genius. We have seen also that the peculiar phe- 
nomena of genius no less than those of light are 
due to physical conditions. The superior intellec- 
tual and artistic powers of a Shakespeare and a 
Raphael are alike due to brain conformations and 
complexity of composition and structure, which 
afford loci for the manifestations of certain higher 
forms of psychic energy. Genius is not a divine 
gift or endowment, nor does it seem to be part of 
the personality, but rather, like instinct, is the 
result of the play of mighty unindividuated and 
unappropriated psychical forces. Like instinct, 
genius is not educable in the sense in which the 
159 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

normal mind may be educated. Often have the 
mightiest powers of genius been exhibited by per- 
sons whose minds were utterly fallow and without 
culture. Genius seems not to be hereditary, the 
peculiar development of the organism being due 
to sporadic physical conditions which we are not 
as yet able to investigate intelligently. 

Certain abnormal brain conditions seem to be 
attended by peculiar and sometimes most unac- 
countable phenomena. Somnambulism, hypnotic 
conditions, delirium, etc., present strange manifes- 
tations, the immediate cause of which is some 
abnormal brain-state developing certain peculiar 
conditions in cells of the organ of mind. Some- 
times we ascribe these phenomena to the so-called 
subconscious mind, as if there were a portion of 
the human personality below what we call con- 
sciousness, and elevated to that plane by some 
unusual condition of the soul or personality. I 
am led to beheve that the term " subconscious 
activities " is erroneous. They should rather be 
called supraconscious activities, due to the inten- 
sifying and heightening of brain and nerve action, 
whereby higher and extra-personal psychical 
forces manifest themselves. 



1 60 



CHAPTER V 

HISTOLOGY: THE BEGINNING OF 
INTELLIGENCE 

Unicellular Organisms — Dr. Hudson on Cell Life — 
Absurdity of the Recognized Phraseology of Science 
on this Subject — The Fortuitous Concourse Theory 

— Inability of Science to account for Inherited In- 
telligence — Differentiation of the Functions of Cells 

— The Nervous System of the Starfish — Testimony 
of Phylogeny and Ontogeny to the Hypothesis here 
set forth. 



We do not know at present how to generate life without the 
action of antecedent life, though that may be a discovery lying 
ready for us in the future; but even if we did, it would still be 
true (as I think) that the life was in some sense preexistent, that 
it was not really created de novo ; that it was brought into actual, 
practical, everyday existence, but that it had preexisted in some 
sense too, being called out, as it were, from some great reservoir 
or storehouse of vitality, to which, when its earthly career is 
ended, it will return. Indeed, it cannot in any sense be said ever 
to have left that storehouse, though it has been made to interact 
with this world for a time. — Sir Oliver Lodge. 



CHAPTER V 

histology: the beginning of intelligence 

THE science of Histology, as it has been 
developed in the past century, gives us 
a remarkable insight into the mode of 
growth and development of the physical organism. 
By this science of cell life and growth all living 
animal organisms are divisible, broadly, into two 
classes, namely, unicellular organisms and multi- 
cellular organisms. The former, as the term indi- 
cates, are one-celled creatures, and stand at the 
very beginning of animal life — the primordial 
germs from which all living creatures on this 
planet have been developed through the processes 
of organic evolution. The multicellular organisms 
are simply aggregations or associations of the 
single cells, and include all the forms of living 
organisms on the earth above the primordial 
germ cell. 

The unicellular organism is the true type of 
animal life, for it displays all the functions in 
163 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

miniature shown by the higher Hving organisms, 
namely, feeling, motion, nutrition, and reproduc- 
tion, which together constitute the idea of animal 
life. " All those properties which the multicellular 
or highly developed animal possesses appear in 
each cell, at least in its youth ; and we may regard , 
this fact as the basis of our physiological idea of the 
elementary organism." In other words, Haeckel 
thus declares there is but one type of life on the 
surface of our planet, that is, the unicellular, and 
this type is preserved in all forms of organisms 
living. 

It would be both interesting and profitable to 
follow the development of the cell from the mon- 
eron to man, but that would be a departure from 
the purpose of this book. It must suffice to say 
that the multicellular organisms were at the first 
simple aggregations of simple cells. In these 
original aggregations the lives of the single cells 
seem not to have been modified, but each retained 
its complete autonomy, performing all the functions 
of a separate life. 

" Change of conditions, or mutations of environment, 
however, led to more permanent grouping, and com- 
pelled modificalion and differentiation of functions, 
until at length it became impossible to dissolve the 
164 



HISTOLOGY 

bond by which the unicellular lives were united. Thus 
the way was opened for farther differentiation of func- 
tions, and thenceforward organic evolution proceeded 
on those lines. That is to say, the moment that an 
aggregation of cells became a confederation, with its 
differentiation of cell functions and consequent division 
of labor, every further step in advance consisted in 
differentiation of cell functions and still further division 
of labor. As a result of a long process of such differen- 
tiation, the organisms of the larger animals and of man 
came to be composed, as we find them, of thirty or 
more different species of cells. For example, we have 
the muscle cells, whose vital energies are devoted to the 
office of contraction, or vigorous shortening of length ; 
connective tissue cells, whose office is mainly to produce 
and conserve a tough fibre for binding together and 
covering in the organism ; bone cells, whose life work it 
is to select and collate salts of lime for the organic 
framework, levers, and joints ; hair, nail, horn, and 
feather cells, which work in silicates for the protection, 
defence, and ornamentation of the organism ; gland 
cells, whose motif in living has come to be the abstrac- 
tion from the blood of substances which are recombined 
to produce juices needed to aid the various processes or 
steps of digestion ; blood cells, which have assumed the 
laborious function of general carriers, scavengers, and 
repairers of the organism ; eye, ear, nasal, and palate 
cells, which have become the special artificers of compli- 
cated apparatus for transmitting light, sound, odors, and 
flavors to the highly sentient brain cells ; pulmonary 
cells, which elaborate a tissue for the introduction of 
oxygen and the elimination of carbon dioxide and other 
165 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

waste products ; hepatic (liver) cells, which have, in re- 
sponse to the needs of the organism, descended to the 
menial office of living on the waste products and con- 
verting them into chemical reagents to facilitate diges- 
tion, — these and numerous other species of cells ; and 
lastly, most important and of greatest interest, brain and 
nerve cells. These cells are of the greatest interest 
and importance, for the obvious reason that they are the 
most highly differentiated of all the cells of the body, 
and constitute, respectively, the organ of objective intelli- 
gence and the means of communicating information 
from one part of the body to another. 

" Without going further into details for the present, it 
must suffice to say that each organ of the body is com- 
posed of a group of cells which are differentiated with 
special reference to the functions to be performed by 
that organ. In other words, every function of life is 
performed by groups of cooperating cells, so that the 
body as a whole is simply a confederation of the various 
groups. And, to the end that the body may act as a 
unit, these groups are connected each to all the others, 
by lines of intercommunication, which, in turn, are com- 
posed of other highly differentiated and specialized cells, 
namely, brain and nerve cells. Not only are the various 
groups thus connected by lines of intercommunication, 
but these lines reach, directly or indirectly, every indi- 
vidual cell in the whole organism. This is elementary ; 
for everybody knows that when any part of the organism 
is assailed, information of the fact is instantly conveyed 
through the nerves to the 'central office,' so to speak, 
and there measures for protecting the part are as instan- 
taneously devised and the appropriate commands issued. 
1 66 



HISTOLOGY 

Thus, if one of the extremities is pricked with a needle's 
point, the cell thus assailed instantaneously conveys 
information of the assault through the nerves to the 
brain, which, in turn, issues its edict through the appro- 
priate nerve cells, to all the muscle and other cells 
surrounding the injured cell, commanding them to unite 
their forces and remove the part assailed from the 
point of danger. . . . The time required is inappreciable 
to the unaided senses ; but it does nevertheless require 
a measurable interval of time to initiate and complete 
the process, as scientists have amply demonstrated by 
means of instruments of precision. It is, therefore, a 
process involving in every step the exercise of intelli- 
gence and the employment of mechanism. 

" It follows, a priori, that every cell in the body is 
endoived with intelligence ; and this is precisely what all 
biological science tells us is true. Beginning with the 
lowest form of animal life, the humblest cytod, every 
living cell is endowed with a wonderful intelligence. 
There is, in fact, no line to be drawn between life and 
mind ; that is to say, every living thing is a mind organ- 
ism from the monera, crawHng upon the bed of the 
ocean, to the most highly differentiated cell in the 
cerebral cortex of man. Volumes have been written 
to demonstrate that 'psychological phenomena begin 
among the very lowest class of beings; they are met 
with in every form of life, from the simplest cellule to 
the most complicated organism. // is they that are the 
essential phenomena of life inherent in all protoplasm^ 
(Binet, " The Psychic Life of Micro-organisms.") 

" I have remarked that each living cell is endowed 
with a wonderful iyiteJligence. This is emphatically true, 

167 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

whether it is a unicellular organism or a constituent part 
of a multicellular organism. Its wonderful character 
consists, not so much in the amount of intelligence pos- 
sessed by each individual cell, as it does in the quality 
of that intelligence. That is to say, each living cell is 
endoived with an instinctive or intuitive knowledge of 
all that is essential to the preservation of its own life, 
the conservation of its energies, and the perpetuation of 
its species. In other words, it is endowed with an 
intuitive knowledge of the laws of its own being, which 
knowledge is proportioned to its stage of development. 
Thus the unicellular organism is endowed, antecedently 
to, and independently of, reason, experience, or instruc- 
tion, with a knowledge of the ways and means of obtain- 
ing nourishment. A mass of unorganized protoplasm, 
it projects portions of itself, and thus perform.s the act 
of locomotion in search of food. When food is found, 
it is enveloped in a mass of protoplasm, digested, and 
assimilated. It has the power of choice, for it rejects 
that which is unwholesome, retaining only that which is 
nourishing. It has memory, as is shown by the fact 
that, having once encountered danger, it will afterward 
avoid it when presented under similar circumstances, or 
having found food in one locality, it will afterwards seek 
it in the same direction. ... It is susceptible to the 
emotions of surprise and fear, as is clearly shown by 
Binet's experiments with Infusoria. It has feeling, for 
it reacts to peripheral stimuli. (Haeckel.) It adapts 
means to ends, near and remote, as is shown by 
Verworn's experiments with Difflugia." ^ 

1 The above extended quotation from " The Law of Mental 
Medicine," by the late Dr. Thomson Jay Hudson, is given place 

1 68 



HISTOLOGY 

We have quoted at length this instructive and 
interesting account of the origin, development, and 
characteristics of cell life without any material 
omissions, and without changing a single word, 
except in the use of certain italics to call attention 
to important points now under consideration. It 
seems hardly necessary to review this passage 
minutely, as its perusal, in connection with what 
preceded it, must present to the mind of the reader 
the obvious application of our hypothesis. The 
generally accepted belief concerning the relation 
of life and intelligence to the material organism is 
unconsciously shown in the passage quoted by 
the frequently recurring use of such words as 
" endowed," " inherent," etc. The idea is that 
each infinitesimal cell has a certain quantity of 
vitality and intelligence deposited within it, suffi- 
cient for every need and emergency of its limited 
and well-ordered experience. The prevailing view 
is that what we call the intelligence with which the 
cell is endowed is indeed a divine spark set a- 
burning for the longer or shorter period of the 
cell's existence. We may picture the hand of God 

in these pages because it shows the results of most painstaking 
investigation of the subject of histology, and the author's style 
lends a charm and attractiveness to the account of cell life in 
physical organisms that is rare in scientific writings. 

169 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

" endowing " each cell in all the universe with a 
definite gift of spiritual or psychic energy, to be 
returned to the Giver at the end of its own brief 
span of being; or we may conceive of this energy 
being bestowed upon the primordial cell and pass- 
ing on through infinite reproduction, division, and 
subdivision until the original endowment compre- 
hends and quickens the innumerable forms of life 
on the earth. Either the primal gift of life and 
intelligence was all but infinite, while manifesting 
but a faint and feeble spark in the first unicell- 
ular organisms, capable at length of endowing all 
possible and conceivable organisms with psychic 
energy, or we must believe in a constant spiritual 
development concurrent with the evolution of 
physical nature, — an altogether gratuitous sup- 
position. 

The theory of the endowment of each individual 
cell with its own share of life and intelligence pre- 
supposes innumerable acts of bestowal by some 
living and intelligent power, and is open to the 
same objections that have been so justly and 
reasonably raised against the belief in special 
creations. With what varied gifts of intelligence 
must the numerous species of cells of which the 
human body is composed be endowed ! How 
170 



HISTOLOGY 

different in degree, if not in kind, the intelligence 
of muscle cells, whose office is that of " contrac- 
tion, or vigorous shortening of length," and the 
mentality of those cells which, with the accuracy 
of a chemist, " select and collate salts of lime 
for the organic framework, levers, and joints " ! 
Mark, too, the rare intelligence and skill exhibited 
by those cells which are " the special artificers 
of compHcated apparatus for transmitting Hght, 
sound, odors, and flavors to the highly sensitive 
brain cells." How marvellous the intelligence of 
those most highly differentiated cells which " con- 
stitute, respectively, the organ of objective intelli- 
gence and the means of communicating information 
from one part of the body to another" ! We must, 
then, regard the Giver of these gifts not only as 
imparting them to all cells, but also carefully dis- 
criminating and giving to each cell or group of 
cells that intelligence which its peculiar functions 
require. 

If the intelligence of all cells was latent and 
potential in the primordial cell, then how wasteful 
was the process by which so enormous a store of 
high-class energy was for ages upon ages kept 
stored up, practically useless ! 

Evolution is a physical process, and we have no 
171 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

warrant whatever for extending it into the psychic 
universe. There is not the faintest suggestion, 
in our experience in the material world, of the 
growth and development of things spiritual. 

By our hypothesis all these evident difficulties 
are removed. The unseen universe is infinite, 
eternal, and infinitely energetic. It pervades, 
touches, and interpenetrates every atom in the 
physical world. Its relations are all psychical 
— intelligent. Its forms of psychic energy are 
infinite. Every cell in every living organism is 
touched and embraced by the forces of this all- 
pervasive universe of intelligent being. That 
which effects the different functionings of the 
groups of cells is but the infinitesimal physical 
variations of those cells themselves, making each 
group respond to and manifest certain specific 
forms of intelligent energy. If we ever become 
able to investigate minutely these infinitesimal 
variations, we shall, it may be, then know how to 
classify these cells according to their functions. 

Reverting again to the above quotation from 
" The Law of Mental Medicine," we find the 
following words : " Each organ of the body is 
composed of a group of cells, which are dijferen- 
tiated with special reference to the functions to be 

173 



HISTOLOGY 

performed by that organ. In other words, every 
function of life is performed by groups of cooper- 
ating cells, so that the body as a whole is simply a 
confederation of the various groups," The "dif- 
ferentiation " above described " with special refer- 
ence to the functions to be performed " is not that 
of the intelligence with which the cells are sup- 
posed to be endowed, but of the physical structure 
of the cells themselves. 

Reverting again to Dr. Hudson's statements, the 
following words may be quoted : " Each living cell 
is endowed with a wonderful intelligence. ... Its 
wonderful character consists, not so much in the 
amo7Lnt of intelligence possessed by each indi- 
vidual cell, as it does in the quality of that 
intelligence." Here we have a statement of the 
quantitative and qualitative intelligence of cells — • 
a certain definite deposit of psychical energy. I 
am not criticising the language of Dr. Hudson, but 
calling attention to the recognized phraseology of 
science upon the important subject under consid- 
eration. It is clearly seen that while the presence 
of intelligence in the cell is taken for .granted, yet 
science has no scientific account to give of such 
presence. This hypothesis of the parcelling out 
of certain quantities and qualities of intelligence 
^7^ . 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

among the cells is not only unscientific, it is 
manifestly artificial, unwarranted, and absurd. 

Again, it is stated by scientific writers on this 
subject that the cell is endowed with an intuitive 
knowledge of the laws of its own being, which 
hiowledge is proportioned to the stage of its devel- 
opment. Here it is supposed that at different 
periods of its development, the cell receives endow- 
ment of the knowledge of the laws of its own being 
in its constantly changing relations and variations 
in structure. How much more scientific to sup- 
pose that the ever-present and active energy of the 
psychical universe utters itself in new manifesta- 
tions, as means thereto are afforded by the devel- 
opment of more and more advantageous variations 
in the physical structure of the cell ! Thus is the 
way made clear for the scientific study of the 
physical and material structure of the cell, without 
any supposition as to the psychical phenomena 
manifested concurrently therewith. Think of the 
enormous amount of psychical energy appropriated 
to the individual use of a tiny mass of protoplasmic 
jelly, whereby it performs acts of locomotion, of 
digestion, and assimilation ; manifests the power 
of choice, rejecting from its food that which is 
unwholesome appropriating only that which is 
174 



HISTOLOGY 

nourishing; manifesting memory, as shown in that 
having once encountered danger, it will afterwards 
avoid it when presented under similar circum- 
stances, or in that having found food in one local- 
ity, it will afterwards seek it in the same direction. 
It is further found to be susceptible to the emotions 
of surprise and fear. It has feelings reacting to 
peripheral stimuli. It has foresight, adapting 
means to ends, near and remote. 

We come now to consider what the science of 
Psychology teaches concerning that " communal 
soul " of the multicellular organism, the human 
body. The cardinal doctrine of this branch of 
science is that these innumerable little minds are 
governed, controlled, and directed in their work by 
a central intelligence resident within the organism. 

" Scientists may differ as to the proper terminology by 
which this central intelligence should be designated ; 
but no one denies its existence, or its power to control 
its millions of subordinates. . . . Philosophers may 
differ in opinion as to its origin and its ultimate destiny ; 
and biologists may not be agreed as to just what it is, — 
that is to say, whether it is the sum of all the intelligences 
of which the body is composed, or whether it is an inde- 
pendent entity, capable of surviving the dissolution of 
the confederacy which it controls. . . . The one salient 
fact upon which all who are acquainted with the pro- 
paedeutics of experimental psychology are agreed, is 

175 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

that it exists, and that it controls the functions of the 
confederated cells of the physical organisms of all 
sentient creatures." ^ 

Even the great exponent of materialism, Haeckel, 
speaks thus confidently of what he calls the 
" tissue soul " : 

" This tissue soul is the higher psychological function 
which gives physiological individuality to the compound 
multicellular organism as a true cell commonwealth. It 
controls all the separate cell souls of the social cells — 
the mutually dependent citizens which constitute the 
community." 

The testimony of two so widely divergent au- 
thorities must positively establish this as the 
generally accepted teaching of science upon this 
subject 

It is evident, then, that the hypothesis of an 
infinitely energetic, psychical universe to which all 
these phenomena may be referred, affording a 
scientific, rational, and philosophical account of 
their origin, has not heretofore been proposed, 
or, at least, considered by the recognized teachers 
in any branch of science. For this reason we 
humbly, yet confidently and resolutely, give this 
hypothesis to investigators and thinkers of our 

1 Hudson's " Law of Mental Medicine," p. 191. 
176 



HISTOLOGY 

day, believing it will contribute to the progress of 
knowledge in every department of science and 
philosophy, and afford a reasonable account of 
many phenomena, physical and psychical, that 
have hitherto remained unaccountable, if not 
inscrutable. 

It will be seen, too, that the " fortuitous con- 
course " theory, on which materialists so confi- 
dently rely, is rendered rational, at least, by our 
hypothesis. Wherever the concourse of atoms 
occurs, there immediately does some form of 
psychical energy display itself, according to the 
stage of the development of the complexity of the 
physical organism. The materialists' claim that 
the change from the inorganic to the organic, the 
first appearance of the living protoplasm in the 
order of organic evolution, may be accounted for 
by the increase of complexity in the constitution 
of the cell, is not wholly erroneous ; but the further 
claim that the increased complexity is the cause 
and creator of the life and intelligence of the 
cell was never advanced except as a last resort 
by some desperate materialistic theorizer. Mr. 
Wallace, speaking of the beginning of animal life, 
declares that the introduction of sensation and 
consciousness is an event completely beyond all 
12 177 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

possibility of explanation by matter, its laws and 
forces. 

" No verbal explanation, such as that life is the result 
of the molecular forces of protoplasm, or that the whole 
existing organic universe, from the amoeba to man, was 
latent in the fire-mist out of which the solar system was 
developed, can afford any mental satisfaction, or help in 
any way to a solution of the mystery." 

In order to account for the intelligence of the 
little globule of unorganized protoplasm called the 
moneron, it is supposed to be endowed with or to 
possess a soul. This soul is almost universally 
regarded as an entity, in some mysterious way 
bestowed upon or developed in the physical 
organism. When in its mode of propagation this 
moneron divides and subdivides its substance, the 
subdivisions all severally reveal the same kind and 
quantity of intelligence as the parent. The ques- 
tions promptly arise, " Whence are these separate 
mental entities derived? Does the same process 
obtain in the psychical as in the physical propaga- 
tion? Does each cell-soul subdivide as the cell?" 
Of course, science can only say, " I cannot tell ; I 
know what takes place in the physical structure 
of the organism, I know nothing at all of any 
process of psychical evolution," 
178 



HISTOLOGY 

As we have already seen, the mental life of this 
primordial germ is manifested by every portion of 
the plasma equally, there being no differentiation 
of functions whatever. In the order of develop- 
ment there appears a grouping of these primitive 
cells, and the beginning of differentiation of func- 
tions is observed. At first this grouping has little 
coherence, and the separation of the cells into 
smaller groups or into individual cells takes place 
without danger of the life of the original group 
or the detached portions. The evolution of the 
organism strengthens the bonds that hold the 
confederation of intelligent cells in essential union. 
Very early stages of animal development ex- 
hibit nerve tissues, as the Meduss or jellyfishes. 
" Whenever nerve tissue occurs, its fundamental 
structure is very much the same whether found in 
the primitive jellyfish, an oyster, an insect, a bird, 
or a man," The evolution of the nervous system 
goes on by the process of more and more complex 
arrangement of the cells and fibres of which nerve 
tissues are composed. The multicellular organism 
in the beginning was a mere aggregation of cells, 
having no essential relations to one another. Soon 
these associated cells became essentially organized 
into the tissues of the body. The starfish, an 
179 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

animal somewhat higher in the zoological scale 
than the jellyfish, and possessed of a more highly 
developed neuro-muscular system than the latter, 
presents a most interesting subject of investigation. 

" The ganglia, or centres of nerve activity in the star- 
fish, are arranged in a ring around the base of each of 
the five rays, into which they send, and from which they 
receive, nerve fibres ; the gangUa are likewise connected 
with one another by a pentagonal ring of fibres. Now, 
experiment shows that in this simple and indeed geomet- 
rical plan of a nervous system, the constituent parts are 
able, when isolated by section, to preside over the 
movements of their respective muscles. If a single ray 
be cut off at its base, it will behave in all respects just 
like the entire fish, crawling away from injury, towards 
light, up perpendicular surfaces, and righting itself when 
turned upon its back." ^ 

Here we trace several steps in the development 
of the nervous system toward a centralization of 
nerve activity. There are here several ganglionic 
centres, all related to one principal centre but 
having each the power of independent activity. In 
the unicellular organism every external stimulus 
affects the entire plasmic body, and the response 
is immediate. In the multicellular organism the 
stimulus acts mediately through the ganglion to 

1 Romanes, " Mental Evolution in Animals," p. 29. 
180 



HISTOLOGY 

which the particular afferent nerve reports, if only 
a member of the body is to respond ; but if the 
whole body is to respond, then report of the stim- 
ulus must be transmitted to the principal centre of 
nerve activity. 

Now, in certain acts, at least, of these organisms, 
as we have seen, there are observed criteria of 
mind — the conscious choice, the prevision by 
which the tiny cell acts with reference to the 
future, the memory of past experiences exhibited 
by this unicellular organism. We must, then, 
admit the presence of mind in the aboriginal or- 
ganism, and as has been further shown, in every 
cell of the multicellular body. How are we to 
regard this mentality? Shall we say it is an entity 
having a real and independent existence? Shall 
we consider it a product of the organism, or con- 
stituted of the aggregate intelligence of all the 
separate cells? On either of these suppositions, 
how shall we give an explanation of the facts, that 
the subdivisions of the moneron have the same 
mentality as the undivided parent, and that all the 
several rays of the starfish can be cut off and at 
once each ray exhibits the same intelligence as 
does the entire fish? Are "the mental powers of 
the moneron so subdivided as not to impair the 
i8i 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

intelligence of the parent and at the same time 
afford each member or segment all powers neces- 
sary for sustenance of the individual and the per- 
petuation of the species? Is there a mind in the 
nervous mechanism of each ray of the starfish, and 
another in the central ganglion, so that any section 
thereof may not lose anything of its mentality when 
cut off from the main body? Romanes says : 

" The beauty and delicacy of the starfish is shown when 
in the unmutilated animal all the nerve-centres are in 
communication as one compound nerve-centre. For 
now, if one ray is irritated, all the rays will cooperate in 
making the animal crawl away from the source of irrita- 
tation ; if two opposite rays are simultaneously irritated, 
the starfish will crawl away in a direction at right angles 
to an imaginary line joining the two points of irritation. 
And more prettily still, in the globular echinus, or sea 
urchin (which is, anatomically considered, a starfish 
whose five rays have become doubled over in the form 
of an orange soldered together and calcareous so as to 
make a rigid box) , if two equal stimuli be applied simul- 
taneously at any two points of the globe, the direction 
of the escape will be the diagonal between them." 

In all this we see the exercise of intelhgence 
which does not seem to be accounted for upon 
the hypothesis of reflex action. Another question 
arises regarding the immediate appearance of an 
independent mentaHty in the subdivisions of the 
l82 



HISTOLOGY 

moneron and the segments of the starfish, as fol- 
lows : Does not some creative power, upon ob- 
serving the origin of the separated portion, at once 
create a soul, or mind, and place it in this new 
being? To this question no satisfactory answer 
has ever been made. Upon accepted theories 
of the relation of body and mind no answer can 
be given. 

But, accepting the hypothesis of an infinite, 
eternal, and infinitely energetic, psychical universe 
continually crowding to manifest itself in and 
through the physical process, whenever an organ- 
ism of sufficient development in complexity and 
delicacy of structure and composition appears, we 
can readily answer these questions and afford 
satisfaction to the mind. When the moneron 
divides itself and thereby produces its offspring, 
the forces of the unseen psychical universe at once 
manifest therein that intelligence to which this 
elemental organism is capable of giving expression. 
So, too, in the case of the mutilation of the star- 
fish, the similarity or identical character of the five 
rays in respect to their neuro-muscular mechanism 
explains the manifestation of the same quantitative 
and qualitative intelligence in the several rays cut 
off. If this hypothesis, when accepted, enables us 
183 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

to explain these simple facts in these elemental 
forms of life, it must also give us the principle by 
which all the complex problems of life and intelli- 
gence in all the progress of the evolution of living 
things can be solved. Every fact discovered in 
the phylogeny of man, the long course of develop- 
ment by which life has passed from the amoeba to 
the human organism, strengthens the evidence in 
favor of our hypothesis. 

When we come to consider the established facts 
of the ontogeny of the individual, whether man or 
a lower order of animal life, we find them giving 
rise to the very same question to which science 
affords no answer and which, indeed, upon any 
hypothesis at present accepted, is unanswerable. 
We know that each human individual, like every 
other higher animal, is in the beginning a simple 
cell. In all cases this stem cell is formed by the 
blending or copulation of two cells of diverse 
origin — the ovum of the female and the sperma- 
tozoon of the male. Professor Haeckel asserts : 

" Each of these sexual cells has its own cell-soul. At 
the moment of copulation or impregnation, not only the 
protoplasm and the nuclei of the two sexual cells coa- 
lesce, but also their cell- souls. Consequently each per- 
sonality owes his bodily and spiritual qualities to both 
parents ; by heredity the nucleus of the ovum contributes 
184 



HISTOLOGY 

a portion of the maternal features, while the nucleus 
of the spermatozoon brings a part of the father's 
characteristics." 

In the name of the science of Embryology, 
Professor Haeckel cannot make such assertions as 
to the origin of the individual soul, for as a scien- 
tist he has no way of making the soul an object of 
investigation. The facts of the origin of the phys- 
ical organism are empirically established, and as 
such we accept them ; but further than that he has 
no warrant for his conclusions. 

As we have seen. Professor Haeckel insists that, 
in the very act of conception, when the two sexual 
cells coalesce, the two cell-souls, that of the father 
and that of the mother, also unite and form the 
new individual. In this there is an assumption of 
a dualism. If this cell-soul is only a function or 
property of the stem cell, then it is already ac- 
counted for as any other function or characteristic 
of the elemental organism. If it is something 
essentially different, as he implies, from the stem 
cell itself, then it is no more accounted for than is 
the spiritual entity in the dualistic theory. The 
supposition of a soul in each sexual cell blending 
with that of a cell of the opposite sex is altogether 
gratuitous and grotesque. We are not permitted, 
185 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

in searching for an explanation of a physical 
phenomenon, to overstep the boundaries of the 
physical process, when a natural and rational ex- 
planation is at hand. If the physical organism 
itself accounts for the phenomenon, we need not 
— we cannot — go any farther in quest of an 
answer. 

Following out this supposition, Professor Haeckel 
concludes that every man begins to exist physically 
and spiritually at the very moment of conception. 
He therefore declares, "This fact destroys the 
myth of the immortality of the soul, and that other 
equally absurd myth, that man owes his personal 
being to the favor of God." We have shown that 
this eminent man of science has not established 
the so-called facts on which to found his declara- 
tion of the utter overthrow of man's most cherished 
hopes and beliefs. We emphatically deny the 
validity of the whole theory. We refuse to allow 
even so eminent an authority to compel us to 
accept his statement that there is such a thing as a 
cell-soul and that the cell-souls of his supposition, 
included within or hovering about the sexual cells, 
in some mysterious way unite when the cells 
themselves coalesce. This is a myth of the Pro- 
fessor's own creation. Rather let us believe, as 
1 86 



HISTOLOGY 

pure materialists, that these cell-souls are but 
functions or properties of protoplasm, if we cannot 
accept the venerable belief that God creates each 
soul and places it in the stem cell at the time of 
conception. 

Again reverting to our hypothesis of an infinite, 
eternal, and infinitely energetic, psychical universe, 
we find the same ready answers afforded these 
urgent questions. The stem cell resulting from 
the coalescing of the two sex cells offers a locus 
for the manifestation of certain spiritual or psychi- 
cal forces, which in their effects we call life and 
growth. With the ever-increasing development of 
the organism higher and higher forms of psychic 
energy are manifested. We can trace the minute 
steps of the anatomical and physiological develop- 
ment of the organism, but cannot investigate the 
correlative phenomena of psychic manifestation. 



187 



CHAPTER VI 

THE HUMAN SOUL 

The Unseen Universe not a Subjective, but an Objective 
Existence — Dependence of the Phenomena of Con- 
sciousness on Changes in the Substance of the Brain 

— Necessity for a New Definition of the Soul — 
Evidence of our Personality — The Psychical Universe 
not a Personality — Development of the Mind as- 
sumed, but not proven, by Evolutionists — Progres- 
sive Manifestation of Consciousness — Orthodox Views 
and Evolution Views of the Origin of the Soul — The 
Soul is individuated by the Brain out of the Unseen 

— Natural Morality dependent on Brain Development. 



In his well-known lecture on Body and Mind, Professor 
Clifford adopted the hypothesis of identity which we are now 
considering, and from it he was led to the conclusion that if in 
the case of cerebral processes motion is one with mind, the same 
must be true of motion wherever it occurs ; or, as he expressed it 
subsequently, the whole universe must be made of mind-stuff. 
But in his view, although matter in motion presents what may be 
termed the raw material of mind, it is only in the highly elaborated 
constitution of the human brain that this raw material is suffi- 
ciently wrought up to yield a self-conscious personality. — G. J. 
Romanes. 

We know by immediate or subjective analysis that conscious- 
ness occurs only when a nerve-centre is engaged in such a focus- 
ing of varied or comparatively unusual stimuli as have been 
described, and when, as a preliminary to this focusing or act of 
discriminating adjustment, there arises in the nerve-centre a com- 
parative turmoil of stimuli, coursing in more or less unaccustomed 
directions, and therefore giving rise to a comparative delay in the 
occurrence of the eventual response. But we are totally in the 
dark as to the causal connection, if any, between such a state of 
turmoil in the ganglion and the occurrence of consciousness. 
Whether it is the angel that descends to trouble the waters, or 
the troubling of the waters that calls down the angel, is really the 
question that divides the spiritualists from the materialists ; but 
with this question I have nothing to do. It is enough that we 
never get the angel without the troubling, nor the troubling 
without the angel. — Romanes. 

You may tell me that my hand and my foot are only imagin- 
ary symbols of my existence, I could believe you; but you never, 
never can convince me that the /is not an eternal reality, and that 
the spiritual is not the true and real part of me. — Tennyson. 



nr 



CHAPTER VI 

THE HUMAN SOUL 

HE quest of Psychology is to discover 
m some unifying principle, some ground 

by which and in relation to which the 
** world of persons " may be defined. The word 
" nature " stands for a " constitutive idea " in which 
all the phenomena and individual experiences in 
the physical world are grouped together and in a 
way accounted for. So, by postulating an infinite, 
eternal, infinitely energetic, psychical universe, we 
unify all possible psychical phenomena and experi- 
ences, whether within the limits of our conscious- 
ness and comprehension or not. 

We have thus far proceeded with the concep- 
tion of an objective universe, psychical in nature 
and relations, within which exists a world of 
physical phenomena, which are the manifestations 
of psychical forces under certain specific, finite, 
material conditions. We have had no reference at 
all to God, nor to any personal beings. We do 
IQI 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

not refer the psychical or physical phenomena of 
our present experience to God, but to the infinite 
and eternal spiritual universe forever and every- 
where the objective to Deity. 

A recent writer on psychology says : 

"The world of material phenomena presupposes a 
system of immaterial agency. In this immaterial system 
the individual consciousness originates. To it, in some 
way, the sensational experiences are due which form the 
basis of our knowledge of the material world. It is on 
this immaterial system the individual consciousness acts 
when it produces changes in the material world." ^ 

We feel confident that our hypothesis of an 
infinite, eternal, psychical universe furnishes, in 
a rational and philosophical way, in strict accord- 
ance with the facts and findings of science, this 
" system of immaterial agency." We have found, 
by a careful study of physical phenomena as they 
are known to science, that this system of im- 
material agency is a necessary presupposition or 
postulate of these physical phenomena. We have 
made it clear that our " sensational experiences, 
which form the basis of our knowledge of the 
material world " are due to the energy of an unseen 
psychical universe, acting in and through matter, 
and that the world of physical phenomena exists 

1 Stout, " Manual of Psychology," p. 54. 
192 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

for us only as a system of manifestations of spirit- 
ual forces. We must be careful to observe the 
objective existence of this unseen universe, and 
not permit it to be confused in thought with the 
subjective consciousness. We must maintain, not 
only the marked distinction between that whose 
differential attribute is thought, and that whose 
differential is extension, but also between the sub- 
ject and the object. It is not inconceivable nor 
unphilosophical to postulate the objectivity of a 
psychical environment. We should also guard our- 
selves against assuming that the unseen psychical 
universe is in any sort a repetition of the physi- 
cal world, involving the same sort of interactions, 
and similar distinctions and relations of its parts. 
We must divest the idea of such spiritual universe 
of every vestige of materialistic conception. The 
thought that material substance can become so 
attenuated in structure as to pass into spiritual 
existence cannot be for one moment indulged. 
The luminiferous ether — which some writers have 
sought to identify with the immaterial — physically 
ethereal though it be, is no more spiritual than a 
stone. 

"Whatever we know as possessing resistance and 
extension, whatever we can subject to mathematical 
13 193 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

processes of measurement, we also conceive as existing 
in such shape that, with appropriate eyes and under 
proper visual conditions, we might see it ; and we are 
not entitled to draw any line of demarcation between 
such an object of inference and others which may be 
made objects of sense perception. To set apart the 
ether as constituting an unseen universe is therefore 
illegitimate and confusing." ^ 

It introduces a distinction where none exists. 
This power which causes in us those conscious 
states that idealists call the perception of material 
qualities is none other than the energy of the un- 
seen psychical universe. This view is in no way 
in conflict with anything that our study of the 
development of the material world has taught us. 

The beginnings of animal life, as we have seen, 
are unicellular organisms. The so-called evolution 
of animal life is the development of the multi- 
cellular organisms, the ever higher and higher 
modifications of single cells and groups of cells, 
and the differentiation of functions. Thus we see 
the whole problem to be one of physical organiza- 
tion and modification. For an indefinite period of 
the evolution of sentient life, the so-called sym- 
pathetic nervous system constituted the physical 
mechanism of life. These lower animals manifest 

1 John Fiske, " The Unseen World." 
194 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

all those phenomena of life which we have de- 
nominated psychical, but which are involuntary or 
instinctive. The most important and interesting 
cell-group in the higher organisms is wanting in 
the lower orders of animal existence. These less 
developed organisms have no brain, or cerebro- 
spinal nervous system. They are therefore inca- 
pable of those higher acts of intelligence which 
are exhibited by animals possessing brain even in 
a rudimentary stage of development. With the 
appearance of a brain begins a new era of evolu- 
tion. Animal progress in higher intelligence is 
concomitant with the development of the brain. 
In fact, evolution, in the domain of higher intelli- 
gence, is the development of complexity in the 
constitution and structure of the brain. There is 
no such thing as the evolution of psychical powers 
or faculties. Professor Haeckel says: 

" I share the view that true consciousness (thought and 
reason) is present only in those higher animals which 
have a centralized nervous system and organs of sense 
of a certain degree of development. . . . The conscious- 
ness of the highest apes, dogs, elephants, etc., differs 
from that of man in degree only, not in kind. . . . 
Consciousness is but a part of the higher activity of the 
soul, and as such, is dependent on the normal structure 
of the corresponding psychic organ, the brain." ^ 

1 Haeckel, " Riddle of the Universe," p. 182. 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

On the hypothesis of an eternal, infinite, psychical 
universe, it is possible, indeed, rationally inevitable, 
to accept these statements of the great exponent 
of materialism, without in any way committing 
oneself to materialistic conclusions. All that the 
careful scientific investigation of brain structure, 
composition, and activity has established, tends to 
confirm the rationality of our hypothesis. For 
under it, these things are just as they should be. 
What Paul Flechsig, of Leipzig, hdiS proved, to the 
effect that " in the gray bed of the brain are found 
the four seats of the central sense-organs, or four 
inner spheres of sensation," we accept without quali- 
fication. He further says : " Between these four 
sense-centres lie the four great thought-centres, . . . 
the real organs of mental life." " These four thought- 
centres," continues Haeckel, " distinguished from 
the intermediate sense-centres by a peculiar and 
elaborate nerve-structure, are the true and sole 
organs of thought and consciousness. Flechsig 
has recently pointed out that, in the case of man, 
very specific structures are found in one part of 
them ; these structures are wanting in the other 
mammals, and they, therefore, aff"ord an explanation 
of the superiority of man's mental powers." ^ 

1 Haeckel, " Riddle of the Universe," p. 183. 
196 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

In reaching the conclusions of materialism, it 
will be readily seen, the great materialist confirms 
the truth of our contention. Ever higher and 
subtler forces of the unseen universe manifest 
themselves as the organ of mind increases in 
complexity of structure and constitution. The 
" specific structures " in the human brain are seen 
to be the loci for the manifestation of those forms 
of spiritual energy which are the distinctive char- 
acteristics of man's higher mental powers. 

On the generally accepted theory of mind and 
its processes we must suppose that some special 
endowment of psychical power is bestowed when 
these " specific structures " appear in the brain ; 
or that these powers, being always present in the 
entity called the soul, are dormant until called into 
activity by the advent or presence of these struct- 
ures ; or else we must accept the conclusions 
reached by the materialist, that they are all the 
immediate products of the brain at a certain stage 
of the development of its complexity. Of the 
complete dependence of the phenomena of con- 
sciousness on chemical and other changes in the 
substance of the brain very familiar proofs can 
be readily produced. For instance, such bever- 
ages as coffee and tea stimulate our powers of 

197 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

thought; beer and wine intensify feeling; musk 
and camphor revive the fainting consciousness ; 
ether and chloroform deaden it. Haeckel asks : 
" How could this be possible if consciousness were 
an immaterial entity, independent of these ana- 
tomical organs? And what becomes of the con- 
sciousness of the ' immaterial soul ' when it no 
longer has the use of these organs?" 

We fail to see the pertinency of these questions, 
even when addressed to those accepting the theory 
of the soul as an ever-living entity, since the con- 
sciousness of the soul in a spiritual environment 
will be inconceivably different from that of a soul 
in a material world-order. On the hypothesis, 
however, of an infinite, eternal, and infinitely 
energetic, psychical universe in most intimate 
relations with every atom of the material world, 
we should account for these familiar phenomena 
by saying that every change in the substance of 
the brain effected by a natural or artificial cause 
either increases or decreases the power of the 
parts affected to respond to spiritual stimuli. 
Dr. McConnell cites an interesting case bearing 
upon this point: 

" A lad of fifteen, suffering frona epilepsy, was brought 
to a surgeon. He was a partial imbecile — slavering^ 
198 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

violent, obscene, untruthful, thievish — a foul travesty 
of humanity, a youthful Caliban. Certain physical 
symptoms pointed to a pressure upon a certain spot of 
his brain. An unnoticed and forgotten scar confirmed 
the diagnosis. The skull was trephined, the pressure 
was removed, and the epilepsy was cured. But that was 
the least part of it. His obscenity, deceit, and dis- 
honesty were also cured. Not seven devils were cast 
out of his spirit, but a little point of bone had been 
lifted out of his brain. The result was the same. But 
the barest recognition of this fact renders necessary a 
new definition of soul. Nor has the matter stopped 
with a bare admission that the body and soul are more 
closely related than had been supposed. Ten thousand 
actual experiments have built up the firm belief that 
every psychic activity, every sensation, every thought, 
every act of will or of affection, is correlated with some 
definite action of the molecules of some specific portion 
of the nervous system."^ 

There can be no doubt that our advance in 
knowledge of the processes of the brain and the 
functions of its parts demands at least a new defi- 
nition of the " soul." Upon the accepted theory, 
all abnormal conditions or phenomena of the 
mental life have been considered as, in part at 
least, psychical, as if the soul itself were deranged 
or diseased, whereas the " ten thousand actual ex- 
periments " referred to above prove such mental 

1 McConnell, " Evolution of Immortality," p. 14. 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

aberrations to be altogether accounted for by brain 
conditions. These diseases and derangements are 
wholly physical. Upon the hypothesis herein 
stated we may again say, " The facts are as they 
should be," for we suppose that the normal mani- 
festations of psychical activities in the material 
environment depend essentially upon normal 
conditions in the physical organ. 

As we are traversing a new road, if not a 
hitherto undiscovered country, it is wise from time 
to time to take account of our findings and draw 
the inevitable conclusions from the facts discovered. 
We have accepted the last word of science regard- 
ing the soul as being bound up with the material 
organ, the brain, that all the phenomena of psy- 
chic life on the physical plane are, without excep- 
tion, indissolubly correlated with certain material 
changes in the living substance of the body, the 
protoplasm. All biologists, all chemists, and all 
physicists agree that a most intimate interdepend- 
ence of mind and matter exists throughout the 
whole range of mundane life, and advances through 
all gradations of the evolution of living creatures. 
We have marked this interrelation from the begin- 
nings of life in the unorganized moneron, through 
the whole process of organization, differentiation, 
200 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

and localization. We have observed the first ap- 
pearance of rudimentary organs of sense, little 
filaments and pigment spots, giving promise of 
organs of perception. A step higher, and we have 
a nervous system sufficiently organized to show 
phenomena not to be distinguished from intelli- 
gence. Finally, the highest of all psychical activi- 
ties converge all sensations upon certain centres 
and structures in the substance of the brain. We 
find no break or gap in the long process of the 
evolution of living things. Throughout the devel- 
opment of life and intelligence, physical progress 
and psychical progress have gone on hand in hand. 
In the picture presented to us by science, organ- 
ized matter exhibits sensitiveness not only to the 
physical forces, — heat, light, etc., — but to those 
forms of activity which we call, with common con- 
sent, psychical. As we have studied living nature 
we have found intelligence in ever-advancing de- 
gree manifested, so that the contention of the 
materialist that intelligence, as well as life, is an 
essential property of organized matter, seemed 
almost forced upon us. In every living cell we 
have met life and intelligence in indissoluble union. 
In fact, those specific portions of the brain in which 
we locate the highest intellectual faculties are but 

201 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

aggregations, differentiations, and correlations of 
these primary, living, intelligent cells; so that, 
prima facie, we may say, memory and volition are 
faculties of the organized aggregates of primordial 
cells. 

In our study of a world process we have dis- 
covered no yawning chasms. Not only do we pass 
without even a long step across the gap supposed 
to exist between the vegetable and the animal 
kingdom, but in vain have we been warned of that 
impassable gulf fixed between the worlds of living 
and dead matter. The innumerable bridges which 
philosophy and science have constructed are 
altogether useless, and may be speedily remanded 
to the limbo of things outworn. There is no yawn- 
ing abyss. The forces of the unseen universe 
move ever onward without leap or bound, mani- 
festing the forms of so-called physical energy in 
unorganized as in organized nature. 

Thus is there provided the great unifying princi- 
ple, an unbroken order of development, a change- 
less universe, which accounts not only for the 
infinite variety of phenomena and the endless 
changes in the physical world, but also shows 
each in its place to be an essential incident in 
a consistent world-order or process. 
202 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

The infinite, eternal, and infinitely energetic, 
psychical universe, in which all relations are psy- 
chical, and the differential of which is thought, 
must be conceived as unconscious, for conscious- 
ness can belong only to the individual. 

As was above remarked, we have accepted the 
last word of science regarding the intimate corre- 
lation between the higher intelligence and the 
brain, and yet insist upon the essential existence 
of a self-conscious soul. Of the existence of a 
personality which is ourself, we have, at least, as 
valid evidence as we have of the existence of the 
material world. It is axiomatic that the common- 
sense decision of mankind in regard to the exist- 
ence of the external world is, in a practical way, 
worth more than all the arguments of those who in 
all ages have discussed this subject. This unani- 
mous verdict of mankind is based upon the report 
of the senses interpreted by the intellect. The de- 
cisions of universal consciousness of the existence 
of the living personality are evidently still more 
immediate and trustworthy. We may, therefore, 
lay it down as another axiom, that the decision of 
mankind derived from consciousness of the exist- 
ence of our living self or personahty whereby we 
think, will, and act, is practically worth more than 

20^ 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

all the arguments of all the logicians who have dis- 
cussed the basis of our belief in it. To whatever 
extent, even to the farthest, we may be ready to 
admit the dependence of our mental operations 
upon the organization and functional activity of 
our nervous system, we must also admit there is 
something beyond and above all this, to which, in 
the fully developed and self-regulating intellect, 
that activity is subordinated. 

" The hypothesis of a soul is demanded as a ground 
of the unity of self-consciousness, and also of the unity 
of the universe. Such an hypothesis is justified as the 
real principle of the harmony of the subjective and the 
objective. It seems also to be required as the subject 
of the changing states of thought, feeling, and volition 
revealed in the phenomena of consciousness." -^ 

Common-sense of mankind says that self is 
a simple, unitary, active principle or thing which 
dwells within the body and directs it. This notion 
of self, however, is not verified by the results 
of the critical study of the mind. In empirical 
psychology the self, ego, or personality, is re- 
garded as the 

"si\bject of feelings and phenomena, plus the series of 
feeHngs and phenomena themselves, the two being in 
that relation to each other in which alone the one is 

1 Soul, " International Encyclopaedia." 
204 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

subject and the other is a series of feeHngs, phenomena, 
or objects. . . . The attempt to ignore one term of this 
relation is hopeless ; and equally hopeless, even futile, 
is the attempt, by means of phrases such as ' conscious- 
ness ' or the ' unity of consciousness,' to dispense with 
the recognition of a conscious subject." ^ 

Here, then, we stand face to face with a new 
fact — a self, personality, subject, and a whole 
series of psychological phenomena correlated as 
subject and object. How, on the hypothesis of an 
infinite, eternal, and infinitely energetic, psychical 
universe, immediately correlated with every atom 
of the physical process, are we going to account 
for the " self" or " personality," a psychic entity, 
of the substance of the psychical universe, and yet 
having existence in relation both to the physical 
world and the psychical universe ? All the psychi- 
cal phenomena throughout the lower orders of 
animal life have been clearly and easily accounted 
for as manifestations of psychical energy through 
the functionings of physical organs as they have 
become more and more complex in structure and 
constitution. In all this we have pursued a strictly 
scientific method, and although we have ventured 
far, it may be, into the regions of the unknown, 
we have never got beyond hailing distance of the 

1 Psychology, " Encyclopsedia Britannica," 9th ed. 
205 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

known. Physicists, chemists, biologists, and psy- 
chologists have been our companions and guides. 

It might be objected that though it is entirely 
true that the psychical phenomena manifested 
throughout the lower orders of animal life are due 
to the correlation between the physical world and 
the energy of the unseen universe, when we come 
to consider self-conscious, self-determining, self- 
controlling personality, there can be no longer 
identity of this personality with the unseen psychi- 
cal universe. 

Psychologists insist that " whatever not only 
lives, but feels and consciously acts, must have 
something of its own ; must appropriate the im- 
pressions it receives, and have the credit for the 
energies it puts forth, and cannot be regarded as 
the mere organ through which flows a foreign 
power. If my thoughts were passed through me 
by another ; if my desires, affections, resolves, 
were phenomena of the psychical force that came 
my way; if, further, the whole genius and knowl- 
edge of the human race, the moral struggles of its 
heroes, the literature, philosophy, and art of its 
cultivated nations were but the ripplings of the 
Divine Reason upon a world, itself the aggregate 
of divine powers — there would, in fact, be only 
206 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

One Person in the universe, and the whole drama 
of our life and history would dissolve into an 
illusion." 

To provide for this higher class of cases which 
culminates in personality, we must recognize some 
detachment of power from the substance or energy 
of the psychical universe. Or, as the psycholo- 
gists further say, " we must admit the conception 
of a delegated force, lent out for a time, in order 
to work the conditions of a distinct existence, and 
relapsing when the term is over." 

We have traced the ever-advancing manifesta- 
tions of the energy of the unseen — each in the 
ascending scale more special and specializing, 
exhibiting distinctively the characteristics of par- 
ticular natures, and gathering around centres of 
individuality, till, at the farthest distance from the 
beginning of the physical process, they emerge 
in the conscious ego of intellectual existence which 
finally sets up another person. Here we reach 
the detachment and farming out of power, and its 
storing np at single loci or foci, to be exercised 
and put forth from within under fixed laws of 
being. Here is man, not only a thinking and reflect- 
ing conscious self, but also a self-determining and 
self-controlling agent, in his highest development, 
207 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

a being all of whose actions are performed with 
a definite purpose which is distinctly within his 
own view, and adapted to the attainment of 
that purpose by his own intelligence. 

The infinite, eternal, and infinitely energetic, 
psychical universe is not only without conscious- 
ness of its activities, but also without volition or 
will. Self-consciousness and self-direction are 
characteristics of personality only. The presence 
of will and conscious purpose in the physical pro- 
cess witnesses to the existence and governance of 
an infinite originating Subject and Personality. 

Is it too audacious to attempt to give an account 
of the origin of personality, consciousness, and 
volition as resulting from vastly increased com- 
plexity in the composition and structure of the 
human brain? As the atom is supposed to be a 
certain vortex-motion in the substance of the 
physical world, the primal manifestation of spir- 
itual energy in the physical process, may we 
not form the hardly more daring supposition that 
the highest development of complexity in the brain 
of man may be able to effect the detachment of 
force and separate individual activity in the higher 
regions of the spiritual universe? To use language 
necessarily figurative, may we not liken the energy 
208 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

of the unseen to a mighty flowing river, and the 
brain to some obstruction just beneath the surface 
that causes a vortex-motion on the bosom of the 
stream? Though the current rush along, yet the 
particles affected by the obstruction move con- 
stantly round and round, ever maintaining their 
separate activity and mutual relations. Whenever 
that complexity of the material organ of the mind 
is reached, then and there do the phenomena of 
self-consciousness and volition appear. Then all 
peculiarities of individual minds are due alone to 
slight variation in the structure and conformation 
of the brain. Education and mental development 
are but processes of brain culture and increasing 
complexity, by which higher and more potent 
forces of the spiritual universe are brought within 
the control of the self-conscious ego.^ 

The question at what time, in the course of the 
developing individual, from conception to the first 
distinct manifestation of the phenomena of con- 
sciousness, does that individual receive the en- 
dowment of a soul, is answered : " Whenever the 
brain reaches that degree of complexity by which 
it can create personality and manifest the phenom- 
ena of self-consciousness." The life of the human 
1 See note at end of volume. 
14 209 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

infant for a period of many months is altogether 
instinctive, and gradually, under the educational 
and fostering influences of parents and its environ- 
ment, at length begins to form simple ideas and 
to choose and guide its actions from within, in 
accordance with the dictates of reason. With 
every stage of bodily growth, further development 
of brain is observed, and along with it is mani- 
fested an ever-increasing intelligence and intellect- 
uality. The will comes into command, and can, 
to a large degree, direct the thoughts and control 
the feelings of the child, and thus enable him to 
rise superior to circumstances and make the most 
advantageous use of his intellectual faculties. In 
proportion as he exerts this self-control does he 
shape his cerebral mechanism, which, like all other 
parts of the organism, grows through discipline to 
the manner in which it is habitually exercised. 

The claim for evolution, that it accounts for the 
origin and development of all the mental faculties 
and endowments (which has been the chief castis 
belli between science and theology), upon our 
hypothesis stands forth as innocent of all respon- 
sibility for this long continued and tremendous 
struggle. Of course, Mr. Darwin's theory of the 
development of the moral and intellectual nature 

2IO 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

of man by gradual modification from the instincts 
of the lower animals, under the operation alone of 
natural selection, must be admitted to be at least 
inadequate. His insistence, however, that we find 
the rudiments of most, if not all, the mental and 
moral faculties of man existing in lower animals, 
has been approved by the large results of subse- 
quent investigation and careful observation. This, 
again, is as it should be. For wherever there 
exists sufficient complexity of structure and con- 
stitution of the organ of mind, there appears the 
manifestation of the psychic phenomena at a 
degree of power and vigor proportionate to the 
organic development. Mr. Wallace points out 
that, although Mr. Darwin may have shown con- 
clusively the existence in the lower animals of the 
rudiments of human intelligence, that is not the 
same thing as proving these faculties in man 
to have been developed by natural selection. 
" Because man's physical structure has been de- 
veloped from an animal form by natural selection, 
it does not necessarily follow that his mental 
nature, even though developed pa?-i passu with it, 
has been developed by the same causes only." ^ 
Here we meet again the suggestion that there is a 
1 Alfred R. Wallace, " Darwinism," p. 463. 
211 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

development of the spiritual nature concurrent 
with that of the physical organism. At least, so 
far as science is able to speak from the facts, 
such a supposition is wholly gratuitous. Of course, 
for the purpose of meeting the exigencies of the 
theory, the evolution of the psychical nature must 
be assumed. For as the organism is progressively 
evolved, so the soul, ever exhibiting higher and 
higher psychical phenomena, must be undergoing 
an evolution also. With reference to the mathe- 
matical faculty, the musical and artistic faculties, 
and wit, Mr. Wallace considers at length the 
evidence in favor of a separate and concurrent 
development of the intellectual nature of man, 
showing that these special human faculties cannot 
be accounted for by the law of natural selection. 
In interpreting all the facts set forth, Mr. Wallace 
emphatically declares: 

" These facts taken in their entirety compel us to 
recognize some origin for these faculties referred to, 
wholly distinct from that which has served to account for 
the animal characteristics of man, whether bodily or 
mental. The special faculties we have been discussing 
clearly point to the existence in man of something which 
he has not derived from his animal progenitors — some- 
thing which we may best refer to as being of a spiritual 
essence or nature, capable of progressive development 
212 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

under favorable conditions. On the hypothesis of this 
spiritual nature superadded to the animal nature of man, 
we are able to understand much that is otherwise mys- 
terious and unintelligible in regard to him, especially the 
enormous influence of ideas, principles, and beliefs over 
his whole life and actions. Thus alone can we under- 
stand the constancy of the martyr, the unselfishness of 
the philanthropist, the devotion of the patriot, the enthu- 
siasm of the artist, and the resolute and persevering 
search of the scientific seeker after nature's secrets." ^ 

We here again come upon the assumption that 
the spiritual nature of man is capable of and does 
undergo a progressive development. On what 
rational grounds can its advocates rest this suppo- 
sition? If we regard the spiritual nature of man 
as an entity, we yet have no reason to believe that 
it is imperfect and undeveloped. In fact, it is this 
unchanging personality that preserves our identity 
through the perpetual flux of the particles of 
matter of which our bodies are composed. The 
eminent writer just quoted is concerned to over- 
throw the position of the materialists, and to 
establish the existence of a spiritual nature in man. 
On our theory this position is not weakened nor 
rendered less tenable, but is really and materially 
strengthened. Science demands the existence of 

1 Alfred R. Wallace, " Darwinism," pp. 473 and 474. 
213 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

a higher world-order, whence the energy of this 
physical process is derived. The most rational 
account of all the phenomena, physical and psy- 
chical, within our experience is that such phenom- 
ena are manifestations of the energy of the infinite, 
eternal, and infinitely energetic, psychical universe, 
acting upon and in cooperation with a physical 
organ of greater or less complexity of structure 
and constitution. 

We therefore hold that man has a spiritual 
nature, or rather, is a spiritual personality. This is 
also the universal belief. We accept all that psy- 
chologists teach regarding the content of self- 
consciousness. Intellect, volition, and emotion, as 
comprehending the psychical faculties or pro- 
cesses, are recognized. 

We have assumed the power in the highest de- 
velopment of the physical organism to individuate 
the energy of the infinite, eternal, and infinitely 
energetic, psychical universe, and create personal- 
ity, the faculties of which are intellect, emotion, 
and will. Intellect and emotion the lower animals 
share with man in an inferior degree. The con- 
sciousness of personal existence and a purposing 
will are distinguishing characteristics of man. This 
exaltation of man into this region of freedom, 
214 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

self-direction, and self-control is attained at the cost 
of the intuitions and the inerrancy of instinct. As 
we have heretofore shown, the instinctive activities 
and achievements of the inferior animals are the 
manifestations of the psychical energy of the Un- 
seen, and the degree of intelligence exhibited is 
in proportion to the development of the physical 
organ of mind. There is in these psychical activi- 
ties no evidence of a purposing will, nor of self- 
consciousness, though by the remarkable simulation 
of self-directed, conscious action some sort of 
individuation is indicated. It is possible that the 
development of the organism may be sufficient to 
effect a partial individuation of psychical energy, 
still submerged in and controlled by the forces 
of the unseen. 

Consciousness we would define as the sense of 
individuation, of separate existence, of power self- 
directed, of freedom of choice. If the lowest intelli- 
gence manifested on this physical plane be but 
the play of psychical or cosmic forces upon a 
rudimentary physical organ of mind, and if every 
step in the advance of intelligence is accounted 
for by the development in complexity of constitu- 
tion and structure of this physical organ, we can 
readily conceive that this material organ would 
215 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

react upon the psychical energy and tend to 
modify its activity. This reaction would, doubt- 
less, have the effect of gradually individuating the 
cosmic forces. As such progress advances we 
should observe a dawning and ever-brightening 
of consciousness, as with the growing intelligence 
the individuation increases and the sense of such 
individuation and of separate existence becomes 
more distinct. 

The rudimentary organ of mind would conceiv- 
ably offer very little resistance to the stream of 
psychical or cosmic forces sweeping through it, 
and hence have little or no power to detain or 
individuate such forces. 

Romanes, in his " Mental Evolution in Animals " 
tells us : " The rise of consciousness is probably so 
gradual, and certainly so undefined to observation, 
that any attempt to draw the line at which it does 
arise would be impossible." He therefore places 
the dawn of consciousness somewhere between the 
first development of nervous adjustments and 
the earliest appearance of the power of associating 
ideas. 

This rise of consciousness and its more and 
more complete manifestation are coincident and 
concurrent with the development of the physical 
216 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

organ of mind. According to our hypothesis the 
development of the physical organ of mind, in 
complexity of constitution and structure, tends to 
the ever more and more complete individuation 
of the cosmic forces, and thus the growing con- 
sciousness manifested in the evolution of organic 
nature is accounted for. 

When the physical organ of intelligence has 
been so far developed as to manifest the faintest 
consciousness by its power to interrupt or modify, 
in the very slightest degree, the play of psychical 
forces, only certain acts which involve distinct 
relations between the psychical activities and the 
physical organ of mind may be said to be con- 
scious. As Romanes says in a passage before 
quoted : " We know by immediate or subjective 
analysis that consciousness only occurs when a 
nerve-centre is engaged in the focusing of varied 
or comparatively unusual stimuli, and when, as a 
preliminary to this focusing or act of discriminat- 
ing adjustment, there arises in the nerve-centre a 
comparative turmoil of stimuli, coursing in more 
or less unaccustomed directions, and therefore giv- 
ing rise to a comparative delay in the occurrence 
of the eventual response." 

The unorganized monera which, as we have 
217 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

seen, manifest remarkable intelligence, and certain 
groups of cells constituting the multicellular 
organism, such as those employed in constructing 
the brain and nervous system and operating 
mysterious lines of intelligent communication, are 
wholly unconscious. The intelligence which these 
tiny artificers manifest is that of the psychical 
universe, hence very remarkable. 

It is generally admitted that all reflex action is 
unconscious. It is altogether probable that all 
instinctive actions, being also habitual, are likewise 
unconscious. We know that many acts of our 
own, which in the beginning were conscious and 
deliberate, such as walking, or playing a musical 
instrument, may and do become automatic and 
unconscious by frequent repetition and practice. 
The instinctive acts of the lower animals constitute 
the routine of their existence. Not only are they 
repeated over and over again by the individual, 
but by generation after generation of the species. 
May we not suppose, that frequent repetition of 
an act makes a way through the physical organ 
of mind, so that the friction (speaking figura- 
tively) between the current of psychical influence 
and that organ shall be reduced and ultimately 
destroyed, and hence, there being no delaying or 
218 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

modifying of the cosmic forces by the organ of 
mind, there would be no tendency to individuation, 
and, obviously, no consciousness? 

If the marvellously intelligent cells of the multi- 
cellular organism act unconsciously, — of this there 
can be no doubt, — then we can conceive that the 
accustomed and instinctive acts of the bee, the 
ant, the beaver, the dog, the horse, and other 
animals are also unconscious. If we can ourselves, 
by frequent repetition, render certain of our con- 
scious and deHberate acts unconscious, why should 
we not suppose that the habitual acts of instinctive 
existence, repeated over and over again without 
variation generation after generation, should like- 
wise be unconscious? 

The brain must have something to do with 
consciousness. An anaesthetic, which acts upon 
the brain, will render it wholly unresponsive to 
psychical influence. A blow upon the head, a 
hypnotic control, a sound sleep — all physical con- 
ditions — render the subject unconscious. Under 
these conditions whatever intelligence may be 
manifested is altogether without consciousness. 

Dr. Hammond, after bringing forward in a vast 
array the results of experience and observation 
on living animals and defective human offspring, 
219 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

states his conclusions as follows : " From these 
facts and many others which might be adduced, I 
think it may be concluded that instinct has at 
least its chief, if not its only, seat in the medulla 
oblongata and the spinal cord." ^ If the brain 
must be concerned in every conscious act, and 
instinctive actions do not involve the brain, then 
must such acts be unconscious. There are cer- 
tainly indisputable evidences showing, in those 
animals having a centralized nervous system, acts 
quite distinct from pure instinct, and simulating, 
at least, conscious actions. 

After the long process of evolution has brought 
forth the brain of the mammal, we discover many 
indications of individuation in the various species 
ascending up to man. The dog and the anthro- 
poid ape seem to have some faint consciousness 
of their own existence, though yet very far from 
the self-consciousness of man. We can hardly 
imagine that a dog knows it is a dog as a man 
knows himself to be a man. No other creature 
than man, in the rising scale of being, can have 
a full perception of its own individuality and 
personality, as separate from the rest of exist- 
ence. The instinctive life of the lower animals is 
1 William A. Hammond, " Treatise on Insanity," p. 149. 
220 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

doubtless unconscious, as we have seen. So we 
find in the instinctive hfe of aboriginal man. The 
savage would be unable to offer any account of 
those instincts which make up so large a part 
of his simple life. 

Thus we trace, through the long course of the 
evolution of the human brain, an ever-increasing 
consciousness or sense of individuation, from its 
first faint dawning up to the full recognition of 
independent existence as a personality in self- 
consciousness. As we can discern the earliest be- 
ginnings of consciousness in the phylogeny of 
the race, so we can discover the awakening of self- 
consciousness in the ontogeny of the individual 
life. This awakening does not take place in the 
early instinctive life of the human infant. It is now 
almost universally held that the normal child gains 
.f^^-consciousness at about three years of age. 

How wonderful is the story of that hne of the 
developing organism which culminated in self- 
conscious man. At first in some primordial form 
there was the awakening to life, when were first 
manifested many powers and activities before im- 
possible. Through innumerable forms ever grow- 
ing more and more complex and marvellous, 
uttering higher and higher psychical forces, the 
221 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

organism advances toward its high destiny. Then, 
at length, the animal no longer is urged by forces 
from behind, but guided, without its conscious 
assent, by instincts and appetites, obeying always 
the strongest motive, almost like a mechanical 
automaton. Further on it becomes conscious, 
looking before and after, learning from the past 
and planning and hoping for the future. The 
organism has reached the estate of man. He has 
gained the knowledge of good and evil, can choose 
the one and reject the other, and feels resting 
upon him the burden of responsibility, " Heavy as 
frost and deep almost as life." This is the birth 
of good into the world, the awakening from 
thoughtlessness and innocence — a state in which 
there could be no real and deliberate moral good 
— into the possibility of the highest goodness, 
through the truceless struggle with the powers 
that strive ever to draw the aspiring soul back into 
bondage to fleshly appetites and passions. 

Let us contrast our theory of the origin of the 
human personality with that at present universally 
held. The orthodox view of the origin of the 
human soul may be stated as follows : That at 
the moment of man's creation God bestowed upon 
this primeval Adam a soul, a spiritual entity, a 

222 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

portion of the Creator's own being, perfect and 
free. (Of course, in the development of the race, 
this individual soul had no part. It departed at 
the death of the organism into a higher realm of 
existence, and transmitted naught of itself to 
posterity.) In the life of every man, at some 
unknown moment, in some inscrutable way, the 
soul is injected from outside into the body, there 
to remain imprisoned and burdened by the weight 
of the flesh until liberated by death. 

Evolution states the problem thus : " The soul 
is derived from God, but not directly; created, 
indeed, but only by natural process of evolution ; 
that it preexisted, but only as embryo in the womb 
of nature, slowly developing through all geological 
times ; and finally coming to birth as living soul in 
man." ^ 

Unqualified assent to the former of these views 
is becoming less general day by day. The story 
of creation as found in the Jewish Scriptures has 
lost much of the authority in former days accorded 
it. This arbitrary though loving endowment of a 
portion of the Deity upon a highly developed 
animal organism does not comport with our ad- 
vanced conception of God and His relation to this 

1 Le Conte, " Evolution and Religious Thought," p. 326. 
223 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

finite physical process. Is the supposition rational 
that God bestows thus upon each individual man 
a portion of Himself, endowed with marvellous 
undeveloped powers, to grow on toward perfection 
pari passu with the development of the brain ? 
That at some time in the foetal or infant life 
of each individual, this self-existent entity is in- 
jected into his body to grow gradually through 
instinctive into self-conscious life, and thence 
onward to the exercise of the highest powers of 
the human intellect, cannot be regarded as alto- 
gether rational. As we have before shown, there 
is no evidence whatever of an evolution of intelli- 
gence, or of psychic being. We can trace an evo- 
lution of the physical world or process. No 
thoughtful person can be found to-day who does 
not accept the findings of science on this question. 
But to maintain that the spiritual or psychical 
nature of man is also evolved is, indeed, without 
the warrant of sound reason. The materialism 
involved in the theory that the world of matter, 
after a long period of gestation, brought to birth 
the " living soul of man " must condemn such a 
theory. That the material world, through a long 
process of physical evolution, should eventually 
bring forth an immaterial, psychical product, is 

224 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

unscientific and irrational. Then consider the 
hypothesis we are endeavoring to estabUsh. The 
physical evolution has gone onward and upward 
from the beginning of this process, ever manifest- 
ing higher and higher forms of energy as the 
organism gains new powers of expression of the 
forces of the unseen. No question is raised as to 
the adequacy of the theory of evolution to account 
for the facts of physical science. All psychic phe- 
nomena are rationally accounted for, whether in 
the animal world or in man, without demanding 
a restatement of the discovered laws of nature. 
Difficulties arising from the inexplicable presence 
and intrusion of psychic phenomena disappear 
upon the hypothesis herein considered. Psychic 
forces and phenomena are hereby eliminated from 
the perplexities of scientific problems. All the 
subordinate questions and problems of science are 
by our theory brought into a clearer light more 
favorable to their ultimate solution. We have 
seen that on our hypothesis there are no missing 
links, no impassable chasms in the uninterrupted 
progress of the evolution of the physical world 
from the creation of the atom to the most highly 
developed brain of the greatest of the human race. 
Out of the infinite, eternal, infinitely energetic, and 
IS 225 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

perfect psychical universe the physical world ema- 
nates, upon it rests, by its energy is sustained, and 
into it may at length return. The one unchang- 
ing, unifying principle of force that binds together 
all the phenomena, physical or psychical, of the 
present world-order, is this infinite, unchanging 
universe unseen. 

We have already suggested a rational conception 
of the origin of the soul created or individuated by 
the highly organized brain out of the intelligent 
energy of the unseen. This individuation may be 
regarded as less and more complete in the higher 
animals and in man, dependent upon the less and 
greater complexity of constitution and organization 
of the organ of the mind — the brain. We have 
also offered a rational explanation of the loss of 
the instinctive power and activities by the separa- 
tion from the eternal and universal energizings of 
the unseen psychical universe. But while we con- 
ceive the soul as in this way coming to personal, 
self-conscious, self-directing existence, we do not 
conceive of this self-existent spirit as removed 
from the psychical universe. While no longer 
flowing on in the great stream of being of the 
unseen, but having a being and innumerable inde- 
pendent activities of its own, it is now related to 

226 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

the infinite and eternal psychical universe as a 
subject to its object. Through the highly developed 
organism, the human body, this spirit entity is also 
subject to the physical objective. As man, being as 
to his body included in nature, is surrounded by a 
physical environment which is continually acting 
upon him and presenting itself to his conscious- 
ness, so man as a spirit is surrounded by a psychi- 
cal environment, which is constantly acting upon 
him and presenting itself in his consciousness. 
Thus there are presented in this two-fold con- 
sciousness both the things of the flesh and the 
things of the spirit. 

According to our supposition, while the in- 
dividuation is complete in man, the human per- 
sonality, the natural man, is still submerged in, 
and washed by, the infinite sea of being, the 
universe unseen, and may or may not attain 
unto a complete separation therefrom by the 
development of the powers of its personal being. 
In his personality every man is individual and 
alone. Others can come near to the bounds 
of this solitude and " send intelligence, influ- 
ences, and sympathy, but no man can scale the 
barriers into the personality of another, to 
think, or feel, or determine, or act for him, or 

227 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

to take his responsibility, or to participate in his 
consciousness." 

Yes, in the sea of life inisled, 

With eclioing straits between us thrown, 

Dotting the shoreless watery wild, 

We mortal millions live alone. 

The islands feel the enclasping flow, 

And then their endless bounds they know. 

The fact of man's personah'ty stands out in clear, 
definite, and certain knowledge. And his person- 
ality necessarily implies that he is a moral and 
spiritual, self-conscious, self-directing being. By 
community of nature and common origin, the 
souls of men hold communion and fellowship one 
with another, and aspire to kinship and communion 
with the Father of all spirits. 

The varying degrees of intellectual power ex- 
hibited by the men of any or all races are 
accounted for by differences in stage of brain 
development. That a whole race, like the Greeks 
in ancient times and the French in modern days, 
should exhibit intellectual superiority to all other 
contemporary races is due to some peculiar func- 
tioning of the brain or to variation in the brain 
structure and complexity. Genius, too, is not to 
be explained and accounted for by some special 
endowment of intellectual power by the partial 

228 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

hand of the Creator, but by some pecuh'ar con- 
formation or functioning power of the brain of an 
individual, by which it is capable of manifesting 
higher forms of the energy of the unseen. 

We are coming now to believe that there are 
various degrees of natural morality, from that of 
the noble man of high ideals and pure and holy 
purposes to that of the criminal insane. Upon the 
orthodox view of the soul as a divine gift bestowed 
upon each individual at some unknown moment 
during his early life, we should be compelled to 
believe that the giver of every perfect gift bestowed 
upon certain individuals perverted souls, inclined 
by nature to that which is evil. If, however, 
certain variations and conformations of brain, due 
to causes and influences to us at present neither 
known nor understood, will adequately explain 
and account for the phenomena, then have we 
reached not only a more rational, but also a more 
moral hypothesis. 

The innumerable implications and applications 
of our hypothesis to the facts of our knowledge 
we have but hinted at. It would be beyond the 
purpose and scope of the present work to enlarge 
upon these interesting questions. 

Free-will is the very essence of personality. In 
229 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

man we first find personality. By self-consciousness 
and free-will man is brought into conscious and 
moral relations with other personalities, and puts 
forth activities and exerts influences originat- 
ing in himself. He determines his conduct, and 
presides over his own emotions, motives, and im- 
pulses. The difference between man and the 
beasts of higher intelHgence is a difference of con- 
stitution. Man as a self-conscious, self-directing 
being is the subject of rational sensibilities inciting 
to action in spheres entirely closed to the brute. 

" He is able to compare all motives and their objects 
in the light of rational truth, and of moral law, and of 
ideals of perfection, and of good estimated by reason as 
of true worth, and of his relations to God. Thus he is 
able to rise above his nature and determine his ends and 
his actions. The motives incite, but they do not deter- 
mine. The brute, on the other hand, is determined by 
the impulses of its nature. It refrains from following 
an impulse only when impelled otherwise by a stronger 
impulse." ^ 

A man's ends and actions are determined by 
himself in his free-will ; those of the brute are 
determined for it by its very nature. Man is 
personal ; the brute, no matter how high and 
marvellous its intelligence, is impersonal. Man 
rises to separate and conscious existence ; the 
1 Harris, " Philosophical Basis of Theism," p. 393. 
230 



THE HUMAN SOUL 

brute exists only as a series of special manifesta- 
tions of the infinite energizing of the unseen 
universe. The brute sustains relations with the 
world of sense only, but man has consciousness of 
his relations with both the physical and spiritual 
worlds. Man knows himself as nature and spirit, 
knows himself as connected with both spheres, 
and finds the powers of both these grand systems 
of the universe meeting in and sweeping through 
his being. There is also a higher relationship 
than the higher of these, and that is the relation 
of rational and moral beings to one another in a 
rational system or order of existence, and in 
common relations to God under a universal law of 
love. This rational and moral world-order could 
not exist without God. Without God, nature 
expresses no rational thought, conforms to no ra- 
tional law, realizes no rational end. Our hypothe- 
sis assumes an impersonal, intelligent universe, 
without consciousness and without volition. This 
psychical universe is governed and ordered by the 
absolute will of God. The dramatic tendency in 
the evolution of the physical process is an ever 
fuller manifestation of that one increasing purpose 
which runs through all the ages. 



2JI 



CHAPTER VII 

THE INDIVIDUALIZING PRINCIPLE IN THE 
PHYSICAL PROCESS 

Conflicting Views of the Atom — Individual Atoms, 
Stars, Planets, and Systems — Universal Tendency to 
Individuation in the Inorganic World and the Or- 
ganic — Tendency of Dualism toward Materialism — 
Causal Relation of the Brain to Genius — Action and 
Reaction between Individualities and their Environ- 
ment — Struggle of the Psychical Forces to manifest 
Themselves in All the Kingdoms of Nature — Special 
Manifestations of this Desire among Animals and Men 
— Perfect Freedom of Expression necessary for the 
Development of Creative Powers. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE INDIVIDUALIZING PRINCIPLE IN THE 
PHYSICAL PROCESS 

THE most readily observed fact in the 
physical process is the tendency to indi- 
vidualization. The atom, of which all 
things commonly called material are composed, 
is distinctly individual. This is true, whether the 
former theory of the atom as an indivisible entity, 
or the later view of it as a congeries of energetic 
corpuscles called electrons, be entertained. As 
individuals, the atoms act and react upon one 
another, each after the manner of its kind. The 
idea of a mass not composed of separate units is 
inconceivable. There is this inevitable conception " 
of the human mind that any body or mass of 
matter may not be infinitely divided, but that 
there must be an ultimate unit that cannot be rent 
asunder — an infinitesimal, absolute individual. 

More recently this conception of the atom has 
been threatened with utter revolution. The mod- 
ern views on matter represent this material unit 

235 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

as made up of any number of corpuscles of nega- 
tive electricity held in the embrace of a sphere of 
positive electricity. If this is the correct view, 
then is the atom, as a system, an individual, com- 
posed of lesser individuals, sustaining relations to 
other atoms, " each a centre from which vari- 
ous sorts of control proceed by means of vibra- 
tions, passing now to the atom and again forth 
from it." 

One thing we certainly know about the atom is 
that, as we descend through the orders of magni- 
tude of individualities of the material world, we 
finally come upon a very permanent kind of 
individual, through the boundaries of which we 
have found no means of making a breach. 

Above these, in this veritable hierarchy of be- 
ing, appear individualities composed of two or 
more of these atoms, grouped together in some 
inscrutable way. These individualities, still far 
beyond the limits of vision, we call molecules. 
These units or individuals are systems of atoms 
sustaining peculiar relations to one another such 
as they do not sustain to other systems, or to the 
members of other systems. To their environment 
they sustain, in some sense, the relation of the 
subject to the objective world. The system holds 

236 



THE INDIVIDUALIZING PRINCIPLE 

itself and its members apart from the world at 
large. 

Again the individualizing is discerned in the 
formation of the crystals. These combinations of 
atoms are governed in their formation by geometri- 
cal laws and exhibit definite mathematical propor- 
tions. It is suggested as probable by Professor 
Shaler that: 

" Every atomic or molecular aggregate has its normal 
crystal form, the order in which the units group them- 
selves in the state of apparent rest which we associate 
with solidity. . . . 

" From what we know of crystallization, we conclude 
that if all the matter of the universe were made free to 
run its natural course from the original diffused state to 
that of a complete solid aggregation, each kind of itself, 
it would enter finally, as it lost heat, upon the stable 
condition of the crystal form, which, so far as we can 
see, is the most fixed of any state." ^ 

The crystals, belonging to many species, have 
the characteristics of their respective species, and 
possess also the distinctive qualities of the indi- 
vidual. Each has an individuality of its own. 
"Thus in many, if not all, of their species the 
process of etching brings out on the clearage 
planes curious microscopic pits, the forms of 
which are in general characteristic of the species, 
1 Shaler, " The Individual," p. 7. 

217 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

while the details of their arrangement appear to 
be in a measure peculiar to the individual." ^ 

We pass on to the larger individuals of the 
physical world — the stars and planets, as well as 
the individual systems the members of which, 
bound together by the mysterious bond of gravita- 
tion, observe orderly movements and sustain rela- 
tions among themselves apart from all the rest of 
the world. In previous pages we have stated the 
general belief of astronomers that the matter now 
composing the innumerable heavenly bodies was 
at the beginning diffused throughout and beyond 
the realm of the fixed stars, the remotest and still 
invisible suns. Then the portions of this mass had 
no individual characteristics. All was uniformity 
and chaos. The process began, which has ever 
continued, the evolution of the individual. We 
observe these individualities emerging from this 
original and simple estate and winning their indi- 
vidual isolation. 

All this world of individualities — bodies and 
systems — is in broad contrast with the undifferen- 
tiated ether, which may possibly be a portion of 
the physical or material world which has not yet 
entered on its way towards individualization. 
1 Shaler, " The Individual," p. 9. 
238 



THE INDIVIDUALIZING PRINCIPLE 

Our point is that the inorganic world reveals a 
universal tendency to individualization, an individ- 
ualizing principle. We might, without exaggera- 
tion, say that in this individualizing process all the 
real work has been done within the material world. 

When we pass upward in the order of com- 
plexity from the inorganic into the organic world, 
there can be no doubt whatever of the universal 
tendency to individuation. Two millions or more 
species of insects and hosts of species of birds and 
beasts and higher animals are crowded with indi- 
viduals, all conforming to the laws of their own 
peculiar morphology. Each individual is a ripple 
on the surface of the species' stream of life. 
These individuals alone manifest the energy of the 
species. All progress is but the development of 
the individuals which appear, have their day, and 
pass on the results of their experience to those 
that come after. All the characteristics of the in- 
dividuals in the organic as in the inorganic world 
are physical. The accumulated effects of experi- 
ence are all written in the physical organism. 
Even in man all that is transmitted from parent to 
child by the way of heredity is some principle of 
brain-conformation, whereby the organ of mind of 
the child is made to reproduce certain peculiar 

239 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

characteristics of the father's and mother's brains. 
It is inconceivable that anything hke thought could 
be handed down as an inheritance. How often the 
son manifests the disposition and mental traits of 
the father ! Yet we cannot believe that this 
psychical resemblance is a direct inheritance from 
the parent. Of course, the brain, which is the 
instrument of our thinking, is to the utmost detail 
of its conformation determined by heredity, at least 
until the individual life begins to shape it. These 
inherited brain-features must afford the way to 
thought to manifest itself as in and through the 
ancestral brain. We are not, on this supposition, 
placing ourselves under necessity to believe that 
thought in any way may be a secretion of the 
brain-cells. We must recognize the indisputable 
fact that there is some immediate connection 
between the state and condition of the organ and 
the thought that is manifested by it in conscious- 
ness. From wherever thought may come, its 
coming forth must be in some way determined 
by the peculiar state of the brain, such as may 
be altogether due to ancestral influences. Every 
distinct brain condition or state may, indeed, we 
insist must, determine and give rise to a definite 
mental process. 

240 



THE INDIVIDUALIZING PRINCIPLE 

It is clearly evident that all these varieties of 
inorganic and organic individuahties differ widely 
from what, in man, we term personality. Man 
physically is an individual like these others we 
have been talking about. But man as a self- 
conscious, self-determining soul or personality, is 
quite beyond our powers to investigate. We 
may, however, suppose that, as all the material in- 
dividualities are or have been formed from the 
material or stuff of the physical world, so the soul, 
personality, or conscious self, in some way alto- 
gether inscrutable to us, rises out of the substance 
or energy of the Cosmos or psychical universe. If 
there is in the physical process everywhere mani- 
fest an individualizing principle, then may we not 
legitimately infer that this same principle is cosmic 
in its application? 

On the hypothesis that this present physical 
process is but the phenomenal manifestation of 
some forms of the infinite energy of the psychical 
universe, or Cosmos, we may legitimately reason 
from the things that are seen to those that are 
not seen. We may legitimately conclude that, by 
some action of the normal human brain at a 
certain stage of its development, the soul or per- 
sonality of each human individual is individuated 



i6 



241 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

out of the substance or energy of the infinite, 
eternal, and infinitely energetic, psychical universe. 
This is much more rational than the materialistic 
theory that the brain produces mind and thought. 

Professor Shaler thinks he finds some evidence 
that concrete thought may be inherited, in the 
nature of the actions where the mind, for any 
reason, becomes so disordered that it is the prey 
to delusions. This evidence is furnished by the 
fact that " the control of the individual conscious- 
ness over the mental process is lost, and . . . 
accidental suggestions, such as can hardly rest on 
experience, rule the mind." This is most ques- 
tionable evidence of anything whatsoever, and 
certainly has no bearing on the problem of the 
heredity of thought, concrete or abstract. The 
author quoted, after offering the above evidence, 
proceeds to assume the position of the materialist, 
and declares it to be " evident that the physical 
mechanism of the brain of itself may produce 
thoughts which are not ihe prod^ict o( personal ex- 
perience." To establish this assertion, he further 
declares that " it is in accord with the common 
empirical judgment which men of all races and 
ages have made as to the nature of insanity, which 
is, in effect, that the afflicted are possessed by 

242 



THE INDIVIDUALIZING PRINCIPLE 

ideas not truly their own, but suggested by some 
other personality — as by evil spirits." 

It seems impossible to escape materialistic im- 
plications in investigating any question concerning 
the relation of mind to matter or of mental to 
brain changes upon any hypothesis now generally 
accepted. The author above quoted has no de- 
sire to pose as a materialist, but is forced into this 
position by the exigencies of his cosmic theory. 
Accepting the doctrine of the soul as an entity 
making use of the brain as its organ and coming 
into the body at some particular moment in the 
life of the organism, he is perplexed at finding, 
under certain conditions, such as insanity, som- 
nambulism, etc., that "unaccountable seeds or 
norms of thought come in an entirely sporadic 
manner, and not in any way connected with the 
ordinary mental occupations of the observer." 
In other places he calls these "spontaneous 
thoughts." Again they are described as outside 
the ordinary experience and not regulated by the 
" balance wheel of consciousness." He accounts 
for these as " products of the mechanism of the 
brain itself," while the normal mental activities of 
the personality are termed " products of personal 
experience," whatever that may mean. 
243 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

I am not criticising these statements as the 
errors of the Harvard Professor, but as the inevi- 
table conclusions of those who hold a dualistic 
view of the universe or Cosmos. All through the 
preceding pages of this book I have taken occa- 
sion to point out the numerous inconsistencies and 
inextricable difficulties into which those who hold 
such views must fall. If, as Romanes said, " ma- 
teriahsm is conspicuously inadequate to account 
for the facts," and spiritualism is " beset with 
difficulties of a necessary and fundamental kind," 
and these are now the only views of the universe 
generally accepted, then can there be no possible 
escape from illogical and inadequate conceptions 
and theories by any attempt, no matter how 
skilful, to combine these irreconcilable cosmic 
hypotheses. 

Only a monism that hypothesizes an infinite, 
eternal, and infinitely energetic, psychical universe, 
of which the physical process and all conceivable 
or possible processes are but phases, is able to 
offer any satisfactory explanation of the whole of 
experience and the observed facts of the physical 
world. Without resort to demonology, or " spon- 
taneous products of the brain," we are able to 
afford a solution of these perplexities, at once 
244 



THE INDIVIDUALIZING PRINCIPLE 

reasonable and satisfactory. The normal brain, 
at each stage of its development in the individual, 
affords the means of the soul's normal activities. 
If the brain be diseased or mutilated so that its 
powers of psychical expression be enfeebled, we 
have the phenomena of imbecility. If by any 
means the cellular, neurotic, or elemental activities 
of a normally developed brain become deranged 
and disordered, we have the phenomena of one of 
the many types of insanity. In these instances 
forms of psychical energy, not belonging to the 
ordered and regulated forces of the individuated 
soul, break violently upon the physical organ of 
mind and awaken strange and unusual phantoms 
and fancies — furtive thoughts, evanescent and 
Protean visions flitting about the soul outside of 
the normal consciousness. 

These mental or psychical activities, not always 
or at first subject to the will's control, like the sub- 
tones in music, which, unheard indeed, make all 
the difference between the tinkling of some paltry 
instrument and the supreme tone of the violin, 
enrich and glorify the life of the human soul. 
They are the play of the higher psychical forces, 
which, with larger liberty of action than that of 
the individuated powers of the personality, touch 
245 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

and waken to supreme activity certain highly 
developed portions of the brain. 

Genius may thus be accounted for as the mani- 
festation of higher and unindividuated psychical 
forces through some abnormally or excessively 
developed functioning powers of the brain. As 
we have before said, to regard genius as due to 
some rare spiritual gift bestowed upon the mind in 
some unaccountable and miraculous way, is to pre- 
sume that there is a beneficent Bestower of these 
superior powers, who, with unmistakable partiality, 
makes a chosen few the beneficiaries of this rich 
dower. As genius is not hereditary, it could not 
have been evolved from lower forms of intelli- 
gence. It is sporadic and thus far unaccount- 
able. One thing has been experimentally es- 
tablished regarding men of genius and of unusual 
mental powers, that such persons have abnor- 
mally developed brains and certain special func- 
tioning powers of the organ of mind. This being 
so, we must accept the fact that all the phenomena 
of genius are due to specially developed brain 
powers. 

I cannot but regard individualization as revealing 
the constant struggle of the unseen to utter itself 
in all possible modes. This revelation of psychical 
246 



THE INDIVIDUALIZING PRINCIPLE 

or cosmic forces is most significant, and is shown 
in innumerable ways. 

The individuahties belonging to the lower 
groups, those of the mechanical order — the atoms, 
molecules, crystals, and the heavenly bodies — 
exert a certain action upon their environment cor- 
responding exactly to the reaction of the environ- 
ment, and vice versa. Even in the higher organic 
groups the same law holds good. Within the 
body, the inorganic units of which it is composed 
act and react among one another much in the same 
way they would if not belonging to an individual 
system. 

At length there is manifest a gradual change tak- 
ing place in the mode of discharging the energy 
received from without, so that a new element 
enters in, and action and reaction after a mechani- 
cal mode cease to account for the whole relation- 
ship between the organism and its environment. 
The sound of an insulting word or epithet falls 
upon the ear. Immediately all the powers of the 
body are called into activity, — the face flushes, 
the eyes flash, the fists clinch, and with mighty 
force the body is thrown upon that of the offender. 
There is something here quite different from the 
action and equivalent reaction of the lower groups, 
247 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

something widely different from mere reflex action 
of muscles to a particular stimulus. Here is action 
from within — impulse or will-effort — in response 
to something more than the mere physical effect of 
sound-waves breaking upon the organ of hearing. 
There has taken place an interpretation of the 
sound-effect, which is made by the soul. The 
utterance of the insulting word was the result of a 
desire of the person speaking to make known his 
contempt for or bitterness toward his enemy, and 
the response was prompted by a similar motive on 
the latter's part, or rather by a feeling of resent- 
ment or revenge. The magnitude of the impor- 
tance of such an incident is largely due to the 
subjective or psychical element entering into it. 

As we have before said, all these individualities, 
from the lowest inorganic group to the highest 
among organic forms, reveal the constant struggle 
of the psychical forces of the unseen to give 
expression to their activities. The corpuscles tend 
to form the atom, the atoms have a tendency to 
unite and form the molecule, and with irresistible 
impulse the elements seek to unite in innumer- 
able compounds. Thus energy from without con- 
tinually impels to individuation as one mode of its 
self-expression. The tendency of atoms to enter 
248 



THE INDIVIDUALIZING PRINCIPLE 

into the crystal state is yet another effort of energy 
to manifest itself in doing work. 

In the vegetable world the same tendency is 
strongly in evidence. The force that expands the 
seed, that pushes the tender blade through hard 
surface of the ground, that lifts the stalk ever 
higher and higher against gravitation, that de- 
velops blade and ear and the full corn in the ear, 
is an effort of self-expression or self-revelation. 
The bud, the expanding flower, the forming and 
ripening fruit, all manifest the same strong inclina- 
tion of the psychical and hidden forces to utter 
themselves. Is it not more than a fancy that the 
grace of the palm tree and the pine, the beautiful 
symmetry of other kinds of forest and shade trees, 
the chaste elegance and beauty of the lily and the 
rose, are due to a tendency in the forces of nature 
to give proper and adequate expression of their 
activities? This is not an evidence of will in 
nature, but a sort of inteUigent impulse or 
tendency. 

When we enter the animal kingdom, this ten- 
dency is accentuated, and is gradually modified in 
form until will is clearly manifest. The fishes, 
the birds, the mammals, even the animalculae 
which the microscope reveals, are seen to disport 
249 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

themselves as if eager to make known their inmost 
feehngs. 

It may be a vain fancy to regard chemical affinity 
as due to the affections and aversions of the 
elements, but it is not at all fanciful to suppose 
that all the individuals of the higher organic group 
have a decided inclination to give utterance to the 
feelings and impulses which belong to and arise 
in the inner life. These utterances and responses 
among the lower animals create and cement the 
social bonds. The sportive gambols and antics of 
these individuals are almost always social perform- 
ances. The general good feeling and playfulness 
among members of the same community or spe- 
cies, and the antagonisms and antipathies between 
members of different communities and species, are 
striking facts due not altogether to external or 
physical relations, but to invisible friendly or 
unfriendly impulses. 

This instinct (for such it is in birds and many 
domestic animals) of self-revelation is exhibited in 
the strut and pluming of certain birds, the pranc- 
ing of the proud steed, the actions of dogs in the 
company of strange dogs. Innumerable instances 
might be given in which this instinct is un- 
doubtedly revealed. 

250 



THE INDIVIDUALIZING PRINCIPLE 

But in primitive man we see a distinct advance 
in this irresistible impulse or instinct of representa- 
tion. The adornment of the person with gaudy- 
colors and fanciful head-gear and striking apparel 
is an attempt at self-revelation, showing many- 
distinct traits of individual character and taste. 
Then the song and the dance serve to meet the 
need. Very early in human development the 
practice of the plastic arts appears, and by rude 
drawings and carvings expression is given to the 
dreams of the soul. At length, abler minds, filled 
with speculations, conjectures, creations of the 
imagination, and forms of thought, find help to 
representation in inventions and literature. Thus 
did man, instinctively and in obedience to a com- 
manding need of expression, develop the powers of 
the brain to manifest the activities of the human 
personality. 

We have, then, in this brief study discovered 
and traced through inorganic and organic individ- 
ualities a cosmic tendency toward representation 
of psychical activities in physical phenomena. In 
all the groups of inorganic individualities this is 
very evidently only the tendency, the inclina- 
tion, the direction of these cosmic forces. In the 
lower organic groups, where the individuation is 
251 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

altogether physical, we have the universal instinct 
of representation. The expression of these inner 
moods and experiences is invariable in all animals 
below man, where first we meet with the element 
of will in controlling these impulses to utterance. 
As man advances in civilization, we find him bring- 
ing the motive of expression more and more under 
the dominion of the will, and by so doing restrict- 
ing the scope of individual growth in creative 
powers. This development can be promoted only 
by perfect freedom to exercise the instinct of 
representation. Communities of reticent and un- 
demonstrative individuals can never be progressive 
communities. The self-sustained character of 
Puritanism, closing almost abruptly the brilliant 
age of Queen Elizabeth, brought also to an end 
the greatest creative period of English literature. 
The English character has since then borne the 
impress of this Puritan spirit. The extreme 
development of this spirit in the Quaker has 
created an almost immovable conservatism in 
Quaker communities. The golden age of every 
race or nation has been that period when the 
creative motives found freest and fullest expression 
in literature and art. 



252 



CHAPTER VIII 

IMMORTALITY 

Recapitulation — Inability of Science to give Demon- 
stration of a Future Life — Probability that even the 
Highest Animals have no Future Life — The Time 
at which the Soul begins to Exist — Two Essential 
Factors of Life — Professor Le Conte's View of 
Evolution as a Gestative Process for the Birth of 
Spirit — The True Meaning of So-Called Mental 
Growth — The Identity of Knowledge and Life — 
The Senses as Gateways of Knowledge — The Purely 
Spiritual Nature of the Soul's Relations. 



Suppose some Platonist were to urge upon us that all this pro- 
cess of material development, with the discovery of which our 
patient study has been rewarded, may be but the temporary mani- 
festation of relations otherwise unknown between ourselves and 
the infinite Deity. Suppose he were to argue that psychical 
qualities may be inherent in a spiritual substance which under 
certain conditions becomes incarnated in matter, to wear it as a 
perishable garment for a brief season, but presently to cast it off 
and enter upon the freedom of a larger existence ; what reply 
should we be bound to make, bearing in mind that the possibili- 
ties of existence are in no wise limited by our experience ? Obvi- 
ously we should be bound to admit that in sound philosophy this 
conclusion is just as likely to be true as that of materialism. — 
John Fiske. 



CHAPTER VIII 

IMMORTALITY 

THE supreme question which the soul of 
man has asked with infinite reiteration, 
"If a man die, shall he live again?" 
presses as urgently now as ever for a satisfying 
answer. Any hypothesis offered to account for 
the origin, destiny, and meaning of the human 
race must essay to make answer to this interroga- 
tion. We have formulated an hypothesis, cosmic 
in its comprehensiveness, and affecting the very 
foundations of all philosophy, science, and the- 
ology. Certainly this fundamental hypothesis 
must have something to offer regarding the soul's 
destiny. We have traced the evolution of the 
physical process through an unbroken progress 
from primordial chaos, or rather from its origin 
in the infinite, eternal, infinitely energetic, psychi- 
cal universe, to the development of the last and 
highest product in the human organism. We have 
seen this evolution to be entirely physical, and the 

255 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

ever more and more marvellous manifestations of 
psychical phenomena to be due to the develop- 
ment in complexity of structure and constitution 
of the organs of life and intelligence. We have 
conceded the most intimate relation possible or 
conceivable as existing between life and intelli- 
gence and organized matter. This intimate rela- 
tion, which has been to the spiritualist a source of 
great perplexity, and to the materialist his point 
of vantage, we have shown to present no difficulty 
to the one and no advantage to the other. The 
concomitance of the physical and psychical phe- 
nomena in the long process of development is 
rationally accounted for also. The completeness 
in itself of the physical process is exhibited. On 
the material side we discover the beginning, the 
becoming, the maturing, and the decaying of all 
things. There is nothing abiding. Change and 
decay are visible on every hand. The type, the 
species, endures; the individuals come and go. 
Every form arising, going on in development to 
maturity, then passing gradually down the path- 
way of decay and death, at length falls into 
dissolution, the body returns to the dust, and the 
great stream of psychical energy sweeps on una- 
bated in strength. Nothing is lost, — only one 

256 



IMMORTALITY 

locus of psychical manifestation has disappeared. 
When at length the ever-developing organism has 
reached the limit of its improvement; when the 
personal being, man, appears, and the brain is no 
longer simply played upon by the mighty stream 
of intelligence, but detaches and detains spiritual 
forces creating a personality, we find along with 
the dawning of self-consciousness the beginning 
of the possibility of a higher, more enduring life. 
We conceive of the soul as becoming more and 
more a distinct entity, yet still immersed in the 
great stream of psychical energy. It has motions 
and activities peculiarly its own, while not yet 
separated from the universe unseen. As we have 
before seen, the human soul as a personality pos- 
sesses certain attributes which bring it into relations 
with God and with other finite persons, and also 
set the soul and the psychical universe over against 
each other as subject and object. 

Science has not been able to formulate or 
authorize any doctrine of even the probability of 
the continuance of the life of man after death. All 
it has been able to do is to clear the way for the 
possibility of a future existence. It has afforded 
man a standing-point, whence he may see the 
beckoning hand of hope, and without irrationality 
17 257 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

embrace and hold fast the faith that the Creator 
and Sustainer of the universe will not, by the utter 
wreck of the physical w^orld, put His intelligent 
children to inextricable intellectual confusion. 
"Perhaps in our ignorance certain analogies may 
help us to realize the J?osst5ility that steadily devel- 
oping ephemeral conscious life jnay reach a critical 
point where it suddenly puts on immortality." 
Such are almost the last words publicly uttered by 
that most hopeful and optimistic exponent of the 
teachings of Herbert Spencer, Mr. Fiske, and sup- 
port our statement that present-day science and 
philosophy have no aid to offer us in our search 
for another life. Upon the hypothesis of an infi- 
nite, eternal, infinitely energetic, psychical universe, 
the manifestations of certain forms of whose energy 
constitute the physical world, we must regard the 
question of survival after death as entirely outside 
the range of physical science. If the whole pro- 
cess of evolution is within the material world, and 
its highest product is the brain of man, then it in 
no way concerns itself with anything spiritual, or 
any mode of existence outside the physical process. 
But if this is true, any other evidence that may 
be produced in behalf of the soul's survival after 
death is not invalidated or impaired by any possible 

258 



IMMORTALITY 

advance of science or any discoveries that may be 
made in the phenomena of the material world. 

The physical process, as it bears no witness to 
God, His existence and attributes, so does it offer 
no evidence or even suggestion of the soul's 
immortality. All those analogies so commonly 
employed as affording proof of man's future life 
are now seen to be altogether without evidential 
value. The imagery of the egg and the butterfly 
will not bear scientific examination. That which 
dies does not live again in the physical world. We 
need not pause to consider any intimations of im- 
mortahty in the physical process, but finding the 
way clear, we may pass on to those " general 
considerations of philosophic analogy and moral 
probability" which may afford us some help in 
our eager inquiry. Here has arisen in the minds 
of almost all former writers upon this subject the 
question as to the scope of the argument for a life 
after death. Are all conscious beings embraced 
within the range of the argument? Are we to 
believe that there is a future life for certain higher 
animals? Our answer has already been made. 
We have shown good reason for withholding self- 
consciousness from even the highest animals. 
There is no possible reason why we should believe 

259 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

that consciousness and the possibility of a future 
life for the individual are coexistent and co- 
extensive. Then we sometimes hear the further 
perplexing question asked, " How could immortal 
man have been produced from an ephemeral 
brute?" The relevance of this question is shown 
to have been removed when we' confine all devel- 
opment to the physical process, and accept the 
theory that in its constitution the soul is immortal, 
and the only question is as to the endurance of 
the personality. The existence of the human per- 
sonality is based upon the irrefutable testimony 
of self-consciousness, and cannot be questioned. 
There is no evidence whatever of the existence of 
personality in the highest brutes. 

Mr. Fiske tells us that Voltaire asked questions, 
to which, he declares, the " most proper answer is 
a frank confession of ignorance." These are the 
questions. " When does the immortal soul of the 
human individual come into existence? Is it at 
the moment of conception, or when the new-born 
babe begins to breathe, or at some moment 
between, or even, perhaps, at some era of early 
childhood when moral responsibility can be said 
to have begun?" To these questions there is 
one answer which upon our hypothesis is at once 

260 



IMMORTALITY 

adequate and inevitable. Those higher psychic 
forces which in man we call " mind " are operative 
just at that moment when the brain of the embryo 
or new-born infant reaches the degree of complexity 
of organization in structure and constitution that 
affords a loc?is for the manifestation of these higher 
spiritual or psychic forces. In the phylogenetic 
evolution of man the same is true. The develop- 
ing organism grows on toward perfection, mani- 
festing, at every step, higher and higher forms of 
psychic energy until at last the self-conscious soul 
appears, not as the product of the physical evolu- 
tion, but incidental to this highest stage of develop- 
ment. Some scientists regard it as a maxim that 
" nature makes no leaps." Others deny the truth 
of this statement, and declare that " nature's habit " 
is to make prodigious leaps. Upon our hypothe- 
sis the " maxim " is true, but to the observant 
student of nature the latter statement appears to be 
true also. The development of the physical organ- 
ism goes on without gap or interruption, but sud- 
denly, at the moment when the conditions are 
perfect, the new psychical phenomenon is mani- 
fested. The illustration used by Mr. Fiske is clear 
and luminous. " Slowly grows the eccentricity of 
the ellipse as you shift its position in the cone, 

261 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

and still the nature of the curve is not essentially 
varied, when suddenly, presto ! one more little 
shift, and the finite ellipse becomes an infinite 
hyperbola, mocking our feeble powers of concep- 
tion as it speeds away on its everlasting career." 
There is no leap here, only that which we could 
not perceive in its gradual development suddenly 
bursts upon us. 

Life, whether mortal or immortal, has two essen- 
tial factors : a living organism, and a fit environ- 
ment in which to live. Life has been properly 
defined as the action of an organism upon its 
environment, and the reaction resulting therefrom. 
We must have, then, something that lives, and a 
place or conditions in which to live. If we are to 
live after death, we must live somewhere, and 
carry on our conscious existence in relations and 
under conditions of which we can have knowledge. 
Correspondence and knowledge are identical terms 
in respect to conscious being. 

Upon our hypothesis, the living spirit, by its 
constitution capable of unending existence, and an 
eternal, perfect environment, are at hand. The 
living entity and the conditions of living are pro- 
vided. In this Hfe, the Hving body with all its powers 
unimpaired must be capable of corresponding 

262 



IMMORTALITY 

constantly and without interruption with its essen- 
tial environment. A failure on the part of the 
body to correspond with the air through the 
lungs by any outward interruption would result 
in death through poisoning of the blood. One 
falling unexpectedly into deep water and being 
unable to keep his head above the surface would 
die of drowning because unable to adjust himself 
to his sudden change of environment. Sometimes 
disease attacks the lungs and renders them incap- 
able of properly oxidizing the blood, and death 
again results — this time from impairment of the 
organism. It cannot be contended that this physi- 
cal body is capable of continued existence for an 
indefinite period of time. The forces of life and 
death are too nearly equal in strength in these 
mortal bodies for an extension of existence indefi- 
nitely. Then, too, the physical environment in 
the midst of which man finds himself is subject to 
startling and sudden changes, which are constantly 
endangering the equihbrium of these contending 
forces. The force that makes possible man's liv- 
ing upon the surface of earth may at any time 
cause his death by falling. The vital air may, by 
a change of temperature, endanger his Hfe by a 
draught. Heat, cold, and dampness — all essential 

26^ 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

to his temporal well-being — may be causes of 
his death. The food he eats may also imperil 
his life, and his very pleasures are often quaffed 
form a cup whose dregs are deadly poison to the 
body. Under favorable circumstances he may pro- 
long his days beyond the narrow limits of three 
score years and ten, but then is his strength but 
labor and sorrow. We have not, then, in the 
human body an organism capable of long-continued 
physical existence, and our changeful environment 
ever threatens to cut us suddenly short in our career 
upon earth. Perfect life is perfect correspondence 
with an enduring and perfectly conditioned environ- 
ment. Either the environment must be change- 
lessly fixed or there must be a perfect correlation 
between changes in environment and adaptations in 
the organism. Upon our hypothesis we have an en- 
vironment perfect, infinite, and infinitely energetic, 
with which an organism perfectly adjusted may 
continuously correspond forever. We then have 
the spiritual organism and the environment, the 
essential factors of the problem of future existence. 
It is further evident that the soul, being what it 
is upon our supposition, and sustaining such rela- 
tions to the material organism as we assume, can- 
not depend upon that organism for the continued 

264 



IMMORTALITY 

existence of its powers. Bodily death of an 
animal is, so far as the higher psychical phe- 
nomena are concerned, but the destruction or 
removal of the material locus of certain psychical 
manifestations. By impairment of any of the vital 
organs the whole body at length becomes incapable 
of manifesting the forces of life and intelligence 
from the unseen. Death, as we know that dread 
catastrophe, has nothing whatever to do with the 
continuance of those psychical forces, the mani- 
festations of which in the physical process we call 
life and intelligence. The assertion that death 
ends all is at once ruled out of consideration by 
our hypothesis. If, however, we conceive the soul 
as "nascent" in the womb of nature, its gestative 
mother, then, of course, at every step of its 
developing existence it is dependent for its being 
upon matter and the physical forces. But we 
have seen that not a single fact discovered by 
science can be advanced as affording any evidence 
that there is any such thing as an evolution of 
spiritual or psychic forces. The psychical are 
the true phenomena, being, as known to us, the 
manifestations of psychical energy. Hitherto, 
science has not repudiated the statement of Pro- 
fessor Le Conte as hereafter quoted: 

265 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

"Thus, then, Nature, through the whole geologic 
history of the earth, was gestative mother of spirit, 
which, after its long embryonic development, came to 
birth and independent life and immortality in man. 
... All evolution has its beginning, its course, its end. 
... I repeat : Without spirit-immortality the Cosmos 
has no meaning. Now mark : It is equally evident 
that, without this gestative method of creation of spirit, 
the whole geological history of the world previous to 
man would have no meaning. If man's spirit were 
made at once out of hand, why all this elaborate prepara- 
tion by evolution of the organic kingdom? The whole 
evolution of the Cosmos through infinite time is a gesta- 
tive process for the birth of spirit." 

Such an hypothesis raises all sorts of unanswer- 
able questions, and stands squarely in the way of 
any argument for immortality. Think of the infi- 
nite travail of the eternal Cosmos to bring forth at 
last the human spirit. Here we have a struggling, 
developing, material universe, with the burden of 
gestation and the pangs of parturition endured 
through an infinite past, giving birth at length to 
a spiritual being that is to endure forever in a 
psychical environment. The less brings forth the 
greater, the ephemeral is " gestative mother " to 
the eternal. 

It would, indeed, be inconceivable that all the 
elaborate preparation by evolution of the organic 

266 



IMMORTALITY 

kingdom should have been made without reference 
to the bringing forth of an adequate result — some 
product worthy of the infinite effort. But would 
the birth of a single, or of several human souls be 
an adequate result of the infinite gestation of the 
material world? If in this way the first human 
soul came into existence, how did it pass by 
heredity down the ever-widening stream of human 
beings? Or had the process of evolution, at the 
very beginning of the human race, already brought 
into existence an innumerable company of souls 
designated for all the bodies of men to be born 
during the subsequent ages of the existence of the 
race? We cannot accept the theory of the descent 
of the soul. Each soul has its own history and 
its own destiny. The stem cell out of which the 
human body is developed through the stages of 
embryonic existence does not contain any portion 
of the soul of the parent. On the universally 
accepted theory, every individual man receives, at 
some period of his early development, a spirit 
*' made at once out of hand," to use Professor Le 
Conte's expression. Either the Deity is forever 
creating these souls as the millions of human 
beings are entering upon their earthly existence, 
or nature is constantly bringing them forth by the 
267 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

gestative process of which Professor Le Conte 
speaks. Mr. Fiske, too, speaks of the " nascent 
human soul," and regards it as developing con- 
currently with nature's upward progress. But 
this seems to be only a tacit acquiescence in the 
accepted theory. No one attempts to prove such 
an evolution of the spiritual, — it seems to be taken 
for granted, — and no one heretofore has ques- 
tioned it. The materialist, of course, believes in, 
or at least asserts, the development of the soul out 
of the material world by the forces of the physical 
process. The hypothesis we are considering takes 
the universe out of the hands of the materialists, 
and relieves men like Fiske, Le Conte, and 
Wallace of the necessity of defending untenable 
positions. 

We see, then, that the whole problem of a future 
life is lifted above scientific support and beyond 
the need of it. It is, in a way, a transcendental 
problem. Science in its farthest development can 
neither prove nor disprove it. But we are not, for 
all that, destitute of cogent and convincing argu- 
ments for humanity's abiding hope. Mr. Fiske 
has formulated a most impressive argument in 
favor of the everlasting reality of religion, which 
is quite as potent in behalf of the future life of the 
268 



IMMORTALITY 

soul. It is something as follows: As we look 
back over the life history of our planet, we trace 
the course of an " infinitely slow series of adjust- 
ments of inner relations to outward relations." 
The upward advancement toward humanity has 
been characterized by an ever-widening environ- 
ment with which the living organism is brought 
into correspondence. " Every stage of enlarge- 
ment has had reference to actual existence outside." 
There was an actual environment in every instance 
to which the living organism ever more and more 
perfectly adjusted itself. A supreme moment 
arrived " when love was beginning to play a part 
hitherto unknown, when notions of right and 
wrong were germinating in the nascent human soul, 
... a moment when the process of evolution was 
being shifted to a higher plane, when civilization 
was to be added to organic evolution, when the 
last and highest of creatures was coming upon the 
scene, when the dramatic purpose of creation 
was approaching fulfilment." Then we see the 
"nascent" human soul reaching out toward some- 
thing akin to itself outside the realm of fleeting 
phenomena, seeking adjustment of its internal re- 
lations in correspondence with external relations 
in the unseen universe. It was the primal effort 
269 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

of the mind of man to put itself in relation with a 
world with which it had no sensible contact, but 
of which it was conscious. This was the birth of 
religion coeval with the origin of humanity, which 
has played a dominant part in all the evolution of 
human society, so that without it, what the race's 
history would be is quite beyond imagination. 
No one can deny that religion has been the 
" largest and most ubiquitous fact connected with 
the existence of man upon earth." Now, that in 
this relation between the soul and the unseen 
universe only the subjective or inner term or 
member should be real and the outward or objec- 
tive term should be non-existent, is something for 
which we can find no precedent whatever in the 
whole course of creation's history. Everywhere 
the correspondence is between actual inner rela- 
tions and actual outward existences. There could 
be no life or being without a reality within adjust- 
ing itself to a reality without. If one term in the 
relation be real, the other term imtst be real also. 
By all the analogies of evolution we are compelled 
to posit the reality of the unseen world in relation 
with the human soul. We are driven inevitably 
to the conclusion that " the unseen universe, as 
the objective term in a relation of fundamental 
270 



IMMORTALITY 

importance that has coexisted with the whole 
career of mankind, has a real existence." 

We have based our hypothesis upon the fact that 
the deepest fundamental postulate of science is the 
reality of an unseen universe, whence is derived 
the energy and the very existence of this present 
physical process. This universe unseen exists as 
an eternal reality, and man has always sustained 
relations of adjustment thereto. This continuous 
adjustment of inner relations to outward relations 
is life. Therefore man lives here and now in 
spiritual relations. Religion is this continuous ad- 
justment of the soul of man to the spiritual environ- 
ment, therefore religion is spiritual life. " This 
relation of fundamental importance, coexisting with 
the whole career of mankind," between the soul 
and the spiritual universe, suggests the possibility 
of its continuance after the termination of physical 
existence. The earthly life of the individual is an 
ever-increasing correspondence of the soul with 
the external environment — the physical world. 
" The more specific and accurate, the more com- 
plex and extensive is the response to environing 
relations, the higher and richer we say is the Hfe." 
The whole course of the mental development is the 
increasing of the points of intelligent contact with 
271 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

the physical environment. There is no education 
or evolution or development of the psychical 
nature of man in physical relations. The so-called 
mental growth is but the development of the 
powers of the physical organ, the brain, with the 
organs of sense, through which the soul derives its 
knowledge of the outside world, and by which it 
manifests its own activities and purposes. All this 
intellectual growth is correlated to and concurrent 
with a constant and vast increase of cerebral sur- 
face. So, too, when civilized man is contrasted 
intellectually with savage or primeval man, we 
discover an enormous development of brain com- 
plexity and cerebral surface. The soul, then, 
constituted of the substance or energy of the 
infinite, eternal, and infinitely energetic, psychical 
universe, comes to know more and more of the 
physical world and its variety of living relations as 
the developing physical organism brings it into ever 
wider correspondence therewith. As was shown 
long ago by Professor Drummond, correspondence 
and knowledge are identical, and correspond- 
ence and life are one. Therefore, knowledge is 
life. This is certainly true of this present life in 
physical relations. The wider our correspond- 
ences, the profounder our knowledge and the 
272 



IMMORTALITY 

deeper and richer our life. We thus see the prac- 
tical and philosophical significance of the profound 
utterance of Jesus : " This is life eternal that they 
may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus 
Christ whom Thou hast sent." 

Through our senses we are brought into corre- 
spondence with our material environment. These 
senses are powers of perception by jfive physical 
organs. We are able to study and investigate 
minutely the constitution and structure of each one 
of these organs. We can examine in detail the 
peculiar arrangement of nerves as well as the 
origin and termination of each nerve. We are 
also able to trace the course of every sensation 
from the presence and action of some external 
object to the chemical or physical activity in the 
brain. What we know of the world without us is 
through these five avenues of communication. The 
infant is born with these bodily organs of sense. 
The world without begins at once to send its 
messages into the brain through ear and eye and 
the sense of feeling. The different portions of 
the brain are thrown into agitation, and there we 
bring our investigation to a close. But these brain 
movements are interpreted, and the mind of the 
child gradually comes thereby into acquaintance 
i8 273 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

with the phenomena of the outside world. The 
form of a man sends innumerable rays of light into 
the infant's eyes, a picture of the man is formed 
upon the retina, certain effects are transmitted 
along the optic nerves to the brain, and at length 
after many repetitions of this experience the idea 
man is formed in the mind. At first the notion is 
a general one, and no distinction is made between 
one man and another. For a comparatively long 
period of time the child regards every man as its 
father, and even after having acquired the ability 
to talk Vv'ill call any man " papa." It will at times 
show preference for its father, because it learns to 
associate him with its pleasant experiences. All 
the growth of the mind of the infant is, then, only 
a fuller and more perfect understanding of these 
sensations caused by the action of the outer world 
upon the brain. 

The sound of a human voice falls upon the ear 
of the infant. A train of activities is initiated which 
results again in movements in the brain. The 
child starts at the shock of the sound, but no idea 
is awakened. The message from the outside 
world is not understood. It has no significance. 
At length you observe that there is some per- 
ception of the sound and that some meaning is 
274 



IMMORTALITY 

attached to it. The eyes open wide and a move- 
ment is made as if the child were endeavoring to 
learn from which direction the sound comes and 
what it signifies. A little later, and the sound of 
the mother's voice is recognized, and when that 
voice is heard you observe the face beam with 
pleasure, and the whole body seems to thrill with 
delight. A step further, and the different moods 
or feelings of the mother are associated with the 
tones of the voice. The mother is angry, the tone 
of voice betrays it, and the child trembles with 
fear at the sound. All this comes from the ever 
more and more perfect interpretation of move- 
ments of the molecules of the brain. At length 
the child has learned to talk, and can understand 
the speech of those about it, but this understand- 
ing is but the interpretation of molecular move- 
ments in the brain caused by waves of the air 
originating with a human voice. The child learns 
to read, at length. The words of an author are 
conveyed through the sense of sight to the brain, 
causing certain molecular movements in the brain, 
and the mind acquires knowledge of the author's 
thought by the interpretation of these move- 
ments. So, as the sensual experience of the child 
grows ever wider and more varied, the knowledge 
275 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

acquired by the mind is the result altogether of 
the interpretation of chemical and physical effects 
produced in the brain. Thus does the objective 
world come to the knowledge of the spiritual 
" subject." The more highly organized and hence 
the more sensitive the brain, the more intimate 
and profound the knowledge of the world without. 
When we come to study the manifestation of 
the soul through the organism, all we are able to 
investigate scientifically is that series of phenomena 
beginning with molecular movements in the brain 
and issuing in some outward act or expression. 
Thus, I will to rise from my chair and go to my 
library shelves to get a book treating the subject 
about which my mind is engaged. The act of my 
will starts physical and chemical effects in the 
brain and then the series of outward acts all follow 
in their natural order. Or I will to meditate upon 
some abstract subject, and my mind by its spiritual 
activities sets in motion innumerable and concomi- 
tant activities in the brain, which may result in 
speech or in writing or some other form of expres- 
sion. So far as we can investigate these phe- 
nomena, they originate in brain activities. The 
will, by thus inaugurating these activities, develops 
the powers of the brain, and all that we call mental 
276 



IMMORTALITY 

education is but the development of the brain to 
receive external impression, and to give utterance 
to subjective activities. 

As we have seen, the soul stands as an observer, 
interpreting certain subtle molecular movements 
and associating them with certain objects in the 
outside world which were the original causes of 
the movements referred to. Hereby it is desired 
to show that evolution in the development and 
improvement of the highest individual, as in that 
of the race, is entirely physical and never enters 
the domain of the spiritual. 

If the soul is constituted, as our hypothesis 
makes most reasonable, out of the substance or 
energy of the spiritual universe, and has relations 
to the physical world only through the brain and 
the sensory organs, then its real life is in corre- 
spondence with the psychical environment, and its 
essential relations are with spiritual realities, or 
may become so. The life of the soul is absolutely 
independent of its physical relations and corre- 
spondences. The soul employs the organs of the 
living organism to bring itself into acquaintance 
with the physical process. We may, therefore, 
maintain, as heretofore, that the question of the 
soul's future life, which is but the continuance of 
277 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

its present life, is one that altogether transcends 
investigation by any possible methods of physical 
science. 

Note. — Some years ago Professor Le Conte startled 
the thinking world by setting forth in the form of a strik- 
ing illustration a novel theory of the origin of the im- 
mortal spirit of man. His illustration was as follows : 

" Nature may be likened to a level water surface. 
This represents unindividuated physical and chemical 
force. On this surface some individuating force pulls up 
a portion of the water into a commencing drop. This 
represents the condition of spirit in plants. Or by 
greater force the surface may be lifted higher into a 
nipple-like eminence simulating a drop, or into an 
almost complete drop with only a neck-like connection 
with the general surface. This represents the condition 
of spirit in the higher animals. In all these cases, even 
though the drop be nearly completed, if we remove the 
individuating or lifting force, the commencing drop is 
immediately drawn back by cohesion and refunded into 
the general watery surface. Once complete the drop, 
and there is no longer any tendency to revert, even 
though the lifting force be removed. This represents 
the condition of spirit in man." 

If we should substitute " the infinite, eternal, psychi- 
cal universe " for the word "nature," and "psychical 
energy" for "physical and chemical force" in the 
above, the illustration would be an apt one of our theory 
of the origin of personality. We have assumed the 
power in the highly developed brain to individuate the 
substance or energy of the psychical universe and thus 
278 



IMMORTALITY 

create the soul or personality. It must be borne in mind 
that the figure given in the text is not intended at all as a 
scientific statement of the results of experiment or actual 
observation, but simply as affording a conceivable and 
reasonable account of the soul's origin. Such a suppo- 
sition must be accepted as a product of the scientific use 
of the imagination. It may be very far from an exact 
description of the mode of the origin of personality, and 
yet it is legitimate and warranted by the facts before es- 
tablished. We are not obliged to discover and state the 
exact method of the soul's origin, or to give the modus 
operandi of its creation. It is sufficient, accepting the 
human personality as an actual, existent entity, to show 
this fact to be conceivable in accordance with our gen- 
eral hypothesis. Upon the hypothesis that the highly 
developed brain of man is capable of individuating the 
substance or energy of the psychical universe and thus 
creating personality, it may be objected that a soul 
created by a brain that is doomed soon to perish must 
itself cease to be when that catastrophe overtakes the 
physical organ of mind. So far as we can show by our 
present method, this may be so. Taking our illustration 
literally, it would seem that the vortex-motion on the 
surface of the stream must cease when the submerged 
obstacle is removed. But we are not warranted in 
straining an illustration to such a length. We cannot 
say what other forces may come into play tending to 
further individuate the incipient soul. As Helmholtz has 
shown that, in the case of the vortex-atom created in a 
perfect fluid, such motion could not be arrested by any 
force known to us, so the individuated energy constitut- 
ing the soul maj be eternal in its activities. 

279 



CHAPTER IX 

GOD 

The Psychical Universe the Objective to God, though in 
itself without Consciousness — Why Theologians at 
first antagonized Evolution — Beneficial Effects of 
the Evolution Theory on Theistic Belief — God not 
the Immediate Source of Physical Phenomena — 
Evidence of Intelligence in Nature, without Con- 
scious Purpose or Volition — The Law of Natural 
Selection versus the Argument from Design — The 
Dramatic Tendency in Nature toward Certain Ulti- 
mate Purposes — Two Conflicting Ideas of God, 
hitherto accepted in Christian Thought — Insuffi- 
ciency of the Teleological Argument for the Being of 
an Adorable God — God revealed in Man. 



I am in full agreement with Professor Clifford in believing that 
Monism is destined to become the generally accepted system of 
things, seeing that it is the only theory of things that can receive 
the sanction of science on the one hand and of feeling on the 
other. But I disagree with him in holding that the theory is 
fraught with implications of an antitheistic kind. In my opinion 
this theory leaves the question of Theism very much where it 
was before. — Romanes. 

No man climbs to God by the pathway of the stars who has 
not first faced Him in the inner sanctuary of his own soul. — 
St. Augustine. 

The conclusion, then, is again on this ground irresistible, that 
the one power that appears under guise so various must, in order 
to be adequate to its highest demands, include all that its 
supreme phases display, and must be thought of not as the gravi- 
tation that answers to our weight, not as the undulation which 
reaches us in the form of heat, not even as the vital current of 
our life, but as the soul of our soul, the fountain and prototype 
of our thought and conscience, with whom our relation rises at 
once from convertibihty of force into communion of spirit. ^ 
Martineau. 



CHAPTER IX 

GOD 

OUR conception is of an infinite, eternal, 
infinitely energetic, psychical universe, in 
which things of sense have neither place 
nor meaning, the differential attribute of which is 
thought or intelligence apart from its physical 
manifestation, in which things or beings sustain 
only spiritual or psychical relations. So far as 
the energy of this infinite and eternal unseen 
universe is revealed in the physical and psychical 
phenomena of the physical world, there is no evi- 
dence that consciousness and volition are attributes, 
properties, or characteristics of this unseen universe. 
We further conceive of this universe as the perfect 
objective to the Eternal, Self-existent Subject, 
through which and in which His omnipotent will 
acts and executes His beneficent purposes. This 
unseen universe is the all-embracing and all- 
producing universe — the Cosmos. The physical 
world and all possible worlds are but temporary 
283 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

phases of the manifestation of the infinite forms 
of the energy of the unseen. All possible or 
conceivable worlds or processes arise out of the 
unseen, are sustained and energized by it, at 
length return into it, bearing all the enduring 
products of their progressive development. God 
is immanent in this infinite and eternal Cosmos. 
Only in a secondary sense is the Deity immanent 
in the physical world. In the unseen, God's will 
is perfectly done without possibility of failure or 
variation, because its infinite energy is adequate 
to utter the Divine Mind. Through the physical 
process we observe the eternal spiritual energy 
giving expression ever more nearly adequate and 
perfect to the Divine purposes. 

We have seen that a necessity of thought 
requires us to hypothesize somewhat as objective 
to God. If God is eternal (and if He is not 
eternal. He is not God), then must that which is 
objective to Him be eternal also. God is infinite, 
and only an infinite universe could be ever in 
objective relations to God.' Our hypothesis of an 
infinite, eternal, and infinitely energetic, psychical 
universe meets this logical necessity fully, and by 
it all the phenomena of the physical world are 
adequately accounted for. 
284 



GOD 

Evolution removed Deity from immediately be- 
hind phenomena, and was at first antagonized by 
theologians as banishing God from his universe. 
Natural Theology was arrayed against the mon- 
strous atheistic theory that proposed to originate 
and develop a world without a God. For a long 
period of time the advocates of evolution were 
regarded as the enemies of theism, because that 
doctrine placed secondary agencies and causes 
between phenomena and the great First Cause. 
Subsequently it became clear that the theory of 
evolution did not push Deity out of the universe, 
but opened the way to discover where God is in 
a developing world. The Darwinian theory of 
natural selection overthrew the argument from 
design ; yet, as Mr. Fiske says, when thoroughly 
understood it will be found to replace as much 
teleology as it destroys. 

"The doctrine of evolution points to an evident 
dramatic tendency, a distinctly marked progress of 
events towards a mighty goal. . . . The story which we 
can decipher is sufficiently impressive and consoling. 
It clothes our theistic belief with moral significance, 
reveals the intense and solemn reality of religion, and 
fills the heart with tidings of great joy. . . . Since the 
Darwinian theory has been fully studied in its applica- 
tion to the genesis of man, a wonderful flood of light 
285 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

has been thrown upon the meaning of evolution, and 
there appears a reasonableness in the universe such as 
had not appeared before. 

"As to the conception of Deity, in the shape im- 
pressed upon it by our modern knowledge, I believe I 
have now said enough to show that it is no empty 
formula or metaphysical abstraction which we would 
seek to substitute for the living God. Practically there 
is a purpose in the world whereof it is our highest duty 
to learn the lesson, however well or ill we may fare in 
rendering a scientific account of it. When from the 
dawn of life we see all things working together toward 
the evolution of the highest spiritual attributes of man, 
we know, however the words may stumble in which we 
try to say it, that God is in the deepest sense a moral 
being." ^ 

This long quotation from one of the most 
eloquent expounders of the doctrine of evolution 
will be pardoned by the reader, as it shows the 
attitude of the scientific mind toward the belief in 
God. Since our theory does not in any way 
modify the doctrine of evolution, as now stated 
and accepted, whatever evidence that theory affords 
of the existence and attributes of God would be 
quite as valid, if not, indeed, of much greater value, 
on the hypothesis it is herein sought to establish. 

God is not to be regarded as the agency to 

1 John Fiske, " Idea of God." 
286 



GOD 

which phenomena of the physical process are due 
as a source, in accordance with the present view. 
The immediate source of phenomena is the infinite 
and eternal psychical universe, and phenomena 
themselves are manifestations of the energizings 
of the unseen. The direction of these activities 
toward the realization of ultimate purposes is by 
the absolute Will and Wisdom of God. Thus only 
is God manifest in nature. 

The formal declaration of Mr. Fiske, as a repre- 
sentative Spencerian, that " the infinite and eternal 
power manifested in every pulsation of the universe 
is none other than the living God," we have shown 
strong reason to reject. We have offered a more 
rational account of the origin of the power mani- 
fested in the phenomena of the physical world. 
We have seen that "intelligence of a very high 
order can exist without conscious purpose or voli- 
tion." Such intelligence we have found in the 
unicellular organism, and in every separate cell of 
the multicellular organism. Such intelligence is 
seen in a high degree of power in the instincts of 
the animals nearest man, which possess no self- 
directing will. 

In the physical organism of man there are innu- 
merable intelligent activities constantly going on in 
287 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

the cells and vital organs which are not only not 
directed by the human will, but of which the mind 
is not conscious, and over which the will can exert 
no control whatever. These unconscious, involun- 
tary activities proceed with the same intelligent 
precision in the body of an unconscious idiot as in 
the strong and healthy body of the man in full 
possession of all his mental powers. So is God 
related to the universe as the Ultimate Will direct- 
ing all activities toward the accomplishment of His 
own purposes. Then the forward and upward 
progress of development points to an originating 
and governing personality. God is revealed in the 
dramatic tendency of the world's evolution. The 
one far-off, divine event, toward which the whole 
creation moves, witnesses to the omnipotent pres- 
ence of God in the universe. 

The innumerable, unconscious, and involuntary 
activities taking place continually in the human 
body do not afford any evidence of the presence 
and attributes of the personal, self-conscious spirit. 
No more do the phenomena of the physical world 
furnish any evidence of God's presence in the 
world. The argument from design has been shown 
to be incompetent. Paley's reasoning has been 
invalidated by the law of natural selection. The 
288 



GOD 

time is now past when Diderot's declaration, that 
one could slay an atheist with a butterfly's wing or 
the eye of a gnat, can be regarded as anything but 
the statement of a vain fancy. The marvellous 
ingenuity displayed in the construction of the eye 
does not afiford us any evidence whatever of the 
wisdom of God, but shows the wonderful intelli- 
gence manifested in the germ cells the duty of 
which it is to construct the organ of sight. We 
have seen that a most rational account can be 
given of this intelligence as a manifestation of the 
infinitely intelligent energy of the unseen acting 
through highly organized cells as loci of its 
activities. 

Man's voluntary acts reveal his personality and 
character. Virtue, benevolence, and integrity are 
shown in a man's conduct ordered by a self- 
directing will. His wisdom is also evinced in his 
direction of his activities toward the realization of 
his purposes and plans. In the attainment of deter- 
mined ends in the world without, he employs forces 
and agencies whose use he has discovered. He 
generates steam, and has learned to apply its ex- 
pansive force to the moving of machinery and to 
locomotion. He has discovered electricity and has 
learned to make use of it for the accomplishment 
19 289 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

of innumerable purposes. Many forms of chemical 
and physical energy he has mastered and made the 
ready servants of his will, directed by his wisdom. 
These forms of physical energy do not reveal man in 
their activities, but only as those activities manifest 
the ordering and control of a designing and pur- 
posing mind. So the infinite forms of energy in 
the physical universe do not in every instance of 
their activity reveal God, but only as they exhibit 
a dramatic tendency, and a progress of events 
towards the realization of some ultimate and worthy 
purpose. Man comes by slow degrees and pain- 
ful effort to knowledge of the physical forces and 
their application to the realizing of his purposes, 
but God knows and controls all the eternal forces of 
the unseen which do His will without failure and 
accomplish unerringly His beneficent purposes. 

Mr. Fiske, in " The Idea of God," has very 
much that is both pertinent and wise to say about 
the conflict between two ideas of God which have 
been more or less widely accepted in Christian 
thought. The one — that of Clement of Alexan- 
dria, Origen, and Athanasius — represented Deity 
as immanent in nature or in the universe; the 
other — that of Augustine — regarded God as a 
creator and ruler of the world from the outside. 

290 



GOD 

The former idea was vague, general, and closely 
related to pantheism. The latter, artificial, anthro- 
pomorphic, and leading to atheism, because it 
gives the ongoing of the universe over to blind 
physical forces. 

"It is interesting to note that this atheism (of the 
ancient Latin world) follows directly from that species of 
theism which placed God outside of His universe. We 
shall find the case of modern atheism to be quite similar. 
As soon as this crude and misleading conception of God 
is refuted, the modern atheist or positivist falls back 
upon his universe of blind forces and contents himself 
with it, while zealously shouting from the housetops 
that this is the whole story." ^ 

This latter theory is older than Christianity, 
Plato, contemplating the wickedness and misery 
of the world, pronounced the material universe 
essentially evil, and so could not think of a pure 
and holy Deity as manifested in it. He therefore 
separates the Creator from creation by an infinite 
abyss. The followers of Epicurus regarded the 
gods as altogether indifferent to the woes and 
sufferings of men, dwelling apart in a state of 
undisturbed bliss. The world was therefore left 
under the sway of blind forces, as we find depicted 
by Lucretius, in " De Rerum Natura." 

1 John Fiske, " The Idea of God," p. 92. 
291 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

In the teachings of St. Augustine not only is 
the material world separated from God, but sin, 
original and actual, has cut off man also from his 
Creator. To bring about access to God and to 
reestablish the divine and human relationship the 
mediation of the offices of an organized church is 
necessary. This doctrine of God, sustaining these 
external relations to his creation, gives rise, as we 
have said, to anthropomorphic conceptions of God, 
representing Deity as actuated by human passions 
and purposes, locaUzed in space and far removed 
from the world of His creation. From His far 
distant abode He could invade the world only by 
violating the laws of its orderly ongoing. His 
every appearance in the midst of the world's activi- 
ties was attended by miraculous and unaccount- 
able consequences. 

By the theory of the Divine Immanence, God is 
regarded as omnipresent, as standing back of and 
directing every activity in the physical process. 
Then we must conceive of the Divine Mind or Will 
as immediately responsible for the fungus and the 
parasite. The claw and the talon and the fang 
are his creatures. The infinite intelligence brings 
forth through a long process of evolution the 
multitudes of imperfect and ill-developed creatures 
292 



GOD 

in every species of vegetable and animal life that 
perish before maturity is reached. It is God who 
acts in every manifestation of physical force, 
all phenomena are the immediate revelations of 
Divine Agency. Theoretically God is conceived 
as a personal Being, distinct from the objective 
universe, but practically the subject and object 
are identified ; or the world is regarded as a simple 
substance in mass, acted upon by this everywhere 
present Deity. In this conception. Nature is the 
body and God is the animating soul. Upon the 
hypothesis we are presenting, the Divine Agency 
stands back of the infinite energy of the perfect 
psychical universe. In the eternal Cosmos of 
spiritual relations the will of Deity is perfectly 
done. There are no failures of His purposes, no 
imperfection in the products of the infinite energy. 
In the finite world of sense, in which a few of what 
might be called the inferior forms of psychical 
energy are manifested, only the larger plan, the 
ultimate purpose are of God. God, as revealed 
in the material world, has neither personality nor 
free-will. Mr. Matthew Arnold goes as far as is 
warranted by all the discoveries of science, if not a 
step farther, when he represents God as the "Power 
not ourselves that makes for righteousness." Mr. 
293 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

Huxley, too, goes a great way into the region 
of pure speculation when he defines God as the 
"Power behind phenomena — the same which 
wells up in us in self-consciousness." This quasi- 
pantheistic conception of the Divine Immanence 
is too vague and evasive to form a basis for or- 
dinary rehgious belief It empties the idea of God 
of all significance for the human soul. It may 
lend a degree of rationality to the thought of God 
as He is held to be revealed in nature, but offers 
a unifying principle utterly void of any attributes 
of personality. But by our hypothesis the prin- 
ciple of unity is provided without the sacrifice 
of the Infinite Personality. 

The teleological argument for the being of God 
yields no God of value for religious uses. What 
care we in those hours of aspiration and adoration 
that our Deity has exhibited consummate skill and 
ingenuity as an Architect or an Engineer? What 
we yearn for is a Being who can respond as a 
person to our spirits' loves and cravings. Intelli- 
gence and Power are alone revealed in the physi- 
cal process, and these the soul cannot affectionately 
adore. In this process the "Power back of phe- 
nomena" shows no divine attributes. We cannot 
guess whether it is well or ill disposed toward 
294 



GOD 

us. We may feel awe, dread, or wonder toward 
such a Power ; we can never worship it. 

The philosophy which has dominated largely the 
thought of to-day bids us pause in our search for 
God, because the quest must be in vain, for the 
Power we call God is " unknowable." We cannot 
comprehend Him, we cannot formulate any rational 
statement of His being and attributes. Nature, 
indeed, affords us data quite too meagre for the 
forming of any conception whatever of the Divine 
Being. 

Man, however, reveals God, as he alone is able 
to receive the revelation of God. The humaa 
personality cannot exist without the Divine Person- 
ality. It is the personal man who worships and 
holds communion with the Personal God. Man 
does not know God as revealed in the phenomena 
of nature, but as speaking into the ear of the soul. 
The very existence of finite personal beings de- 
mands the being of the Absolute Person. We have 
before shown it to be beyond all doubt that per- 
sonal beings exist. The conclusion is inevitable 
that the absolute Being exists, in whose thought 
and purpose all things consist. 

It would not come within the scope of this book 
to draw up in full array the evidences which have 
295 



COSMOS, THE SOUL, AND GOD 

been formulated for the being and attributes of 
God as revealed in man. Suffice it to say, that 
whatever argument for this truth is valid upon the 
prevailing hypothesis of God in relation to the 
physical process, is rendered more powerful upon 
the hypothesis here suggested and maintained. 

The subordinate hypothesis, that the brain of 
man, having reached an advanced degree of com- 
plexity in structure and constitution, individuates 
forces of the psychical universe, does not account 
for those qualities or attributes of personality as 
characteristics of the unconscious, though intelli- 
gent energy of the unseen. Self-consciousness 
and freedom of the will must be distinctive char- 
acteristics and powers of personality as such, 
whereby relations are created and maintained 
among personal beings. These relations, existing 
among finite persons, we term moral or ethical ; 
between the finite personality and God, we call 
them religion. All these relations are entirely 
apart from physical correlations, God is re- 
vealed in the constitutional religiousness of man. 
Religion may be defined as the consciousness of 
the soul's relation to God. This consciousness 
of God is the highest distinctive characteristic of 
man, and shows his individuation from the infinite, 
296 



GOD 

psychical universe. It is in this consciousness 
there arise 

Those obstinate questionings 
Of sense and outward things, 
Fallings from us, vanishings ; 
Blank misgivings of a Creature 

Moving about in worlds not realized, 
High instincts, before which our mortal Nature 
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised ; 
Those first affections, 

Those shadowy recollections, 
Which, be they what they may, 
Are yet the fountain light of all our day, 
Are yet the master light of all our seeing; 

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 
Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
Of the eternal Silence : truths that wake, 
To perish never. 



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